Friday, June 30, 2017

How to sort Google search results by date

Sometimes... 

... you just want to see your search results sorted by date. How can you do this?  

Turns out it's not hard, just slightly obscure.

 Here's a simple way to do it... 

First, do your search, then limit by time, THEN you can sort the results by date.  Here's the same example query as in the video:  


Then click on "Tools" (1) in the image below.  

This will popup a time-restriction set of options (2).  


Select whatever time period you want (including a custom range).  

Then click on the menu that says "Sorted by relevance" and it will popup two options, including "Sorted by date"  (3).  When you select that option... 



.... it will sort the results for you in reverse chronological order.  





 This is incredibly handy for looking at the results of site: search.  Here's a nice example:  Suppose you want to read the latest articles on "coral bleaching"  from the magazine Science News.  Here's what you get if you JUST limit the articles to the past 17 years. 



Those are great results, but if you look at them SORTED, the results are rather different... (and more useful). 



And now you know how.  

Enjoy! 

___________________________________

(And if you want to know how to hack the URL... ) 

The key step is to append your sorting instructions at the end of the search URL.  

Here's a short video showing you how to do this: 

The video shows you how, but here are the steps written out: 

1.  Do a search for whatever you'd like.
     You'll see the SERP with all of the results in relevance order


2. Append   &tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/0,sbd:1 to the end of the search URL
     (be sure to copy this string exactly)


3. Hit enter, and you'll see your results in reverse chronological order, with the most recent results on top.  (And you can get all of the results since 1 BC! Admittedly, there's not a lot of results before 1990, but if there were...)  






11 comments:

  1. If only you could (still) do this in the new/revamped/optimized Google News ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Ace,

      Please make sure you go to the gear/cog in the upper right corner and then select Send Feedback. Those requests go directly to a member of the Google News team.

      Delete
  2. … had a quick question about an apparent SERP anomaly…
    your results v what came up for me
    the URL string w/added code line:
    https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A.edu%22coral+bleaching%22&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS507US507&oq=site%3A.edu%22coral+bleaching%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58j69i59.3199j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=site:.edu+%22coral+bleaching%22&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/0,sbd:1

    also looked at some of the other options… why the variance?
    past year, sorted by date
    past year, sorted by date, jmages
    past week, sorted by date, images

    past week SERP
    past month SERP
    past year SERP

    ReplyDelete
  3. Related to previous SRS:


    The-hidden-signs-that-can-reveal-if-a-photo-is-fake

    And, thinking about Geolocation of tweets, the other day I was watching Animal Planet's The Zoo. It is very interesting. And thought if I want to find some of those animal helpers in Twitter and don't remember their name, how can I search for that? My process is :

    1. Look for the profile of the Zoo
    2. In the search options include the name and the zoo profile

    And I thought this query could work on Google Search [ "name" site:twitter.com/bronxzoo/following] however this doesn't work. My question, this query doesn't work because Twitter followers are only available to those signed up? Or it doesn't work because other reasons. I know it is something basic and probably dumb, but that is something I'd love to know.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you, Dr. Russell. This is a very welcome followup to my earlier question.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Replies
    1. image search mystery… not only amazing, but has a sense of humor…
      "Best guess for this image: Bean sprout"
      the SERP - "Pages that include matching images" has it though…
      best link:
      Nikon Miami
      the camera rig - that might bring in the Farallones…
      started with a an image search from here, first photo — wonder if he knew he was photographing bean sprouts?
      Photographer James Winters

      Delete
  6. The 'Sorted by date/relevance' button doesn't appear for me. Seems barely believable Google won't let you order search results by chronological order.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I tried this but it no longer works. I think Google have disabled this facility. Makes sense since they get paid to put certain results higher up the list and if you can sort by date then that would seriously hamper that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know that we don't get money to move search results up the list. But I did ask the search engineers about this and they pointed out that (a) VERY few people actually used it; and (b) most of the dates on the web pages out there are unreliable. People often post, re-post, or change the dates for various reasons. (For instance, we see publication dates that predate the Roman civilization, and that seems unlikely.) Since it was super noisy, we discontinued it. Hope this helps.

      Delete