Want to filter results before, or after a set date, or even a desired date range? There’s a Google search operator to help you do just that.
The “before:YYYY-MM-DD” and “after:YYYY-MM-DD” search operator commands yield results for before, after, and within the dates specified.
The benefits of before: and after: search operators for SEO
Filtering queries by date gives SEOs a more dynamic picture of how their rankings (and those of their competitors) have risen or fallen over time.
Filtering by date can also help clarify the impact that seasonality or breaking news may have on your content’s performance. The addition of the before: and after: commands make it more convenient to access this information.
Competitor research
Noticed a change in your competitor rankings and trends in your monitoring tool? Combine the site: operator [competitor URL] and before or after (or compare both results sets), to analyze changes in results returned before and then after the date of changing trend.
Another competitor intelligence gathering benefit, if you suspect your competitor is “updating” content by adding the year (e.g., 2024, 2025) to title tags at the end of each year, you can use the before: operator to see if the content existed, combining with “phrase” (quotation marks to signify exact keyword or phrase) in previous years, in the same format.
How to use the before: and after: search operators
From Google:
The before: & after: commands return documents before & after a date. You must provide year-month-day dates or only a year. You can combine both. For example:
[avengers endgame before:2019]
[avengers endgame after:2019-04-01]
[avengers endgame after:2019-03-01 before:2019-03-05] pic.twitter.com/bo1rSeulbH
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 9, 2019
To get search results before a given date, add “before:YYYY-MM-DD” to your search query. For example, searching “the best donuts in Boston before:2008-01-01” will yield content from 2007 and earlier.
To get results after a given date, add “after:YYYY-MM-DD” at the end of your search. For example, searching “top 10 horror movies after:2018-12-31” will provide you with results that were published in 2019 and onward.
You can combine both commands to search within a date range. For example, searching “one-hit wonders after:1999-12-31 before:2001-01-01” will yield results from the year 2000.
Users can also use dashes instead of slashes as well as single digits for months and days, or filter by just the year, making “before:2001” equivalent to “before:2001-01-01.”
Search by date has existed for more than a decade. The search-by-date filter was introduced in 2009. From its debut until just recently, the feature was only accessible from the Tools tab of the search interface.
Want to combine these command with other search operators to boost your search skills? Check out the Search Engine Land guide to advanced search operators here.