Filtering Google Results by Date

by Dr. Todd Curtis

I enjoy getting questions from Parenting and the Internet readers and mailing list subscribers, and today I got one that led me to a very interesting discovery.

The question was whether it was possible to list search results by date. Most search engines, including Google, don't have this as a basic option or even as an advanced search option. However, it does appear that the functionality is built into Google, although you will have to do a bit of work to use it.

Google can reorder search and news results from the last day, week, a few months, or entire year by adding a small string to the end of the URL of the search result. Just add this string "&as_qdr=d" to the end of the URL in the address bar and hit enter. You'll get a custom drop-down box that lets you select search results from a particular date range.

For example, on May 15, 2008, I did a search using the words [airline safety], and the result has the following URL:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=airline+safety&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f

Adding the date search string gives you this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=airline+safety&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&as_qdr=d

I hit return, and the new page had a drop down list near the search box. The default value in that box is "past 24 hours." You also have options for searching in other time periods, including the past week, month, two months, three months, six months, and year.

It is not clear to me why this functionality is not part of the standard Google preferences or options. My suspicion is that the ability to search by date is still in some phase of testing and evaluation, and that it will be available in time. Until that happens, the procedure I described here may work for you.