Something I have been wanting a LONG time has been the ability to set my google searches to default to Past Year. Since I do a lot of software related searches, results from 5 years ago are usually irrelevant.
I did a search on the structure of google search urls and found this post: http://www.our-picks.com/archives/2007/01/30/google-search-urls-revealed-or-how-to-create-your-own-search-url/
Here’s how to set up Chrome to use the past year as your default search range:
- Go to settings.
- Under the Search heading, click the Manage Search Engines… button.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page, so you see the 3 fields for entering your own search engine.
- Put these in the three fields: (view the UPDATE below to simplify the third field)
-
GoogleYear
-
search.google.com
-
{google:baseURL}search?q=%s&as_qdr=y&{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:assistedQueryStats}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:searchClient}{google:sourceId}{google:instantExtendedEnabledParameter}ie={inputEncoding}
-
- Click the “Make default” button that appears at the end of the row you just made.
- Click DONE and you’re set. Now your omnibox will always default search results to the past year unless you change it the usual way from the Search Tools at the top of the results page.
For other browsers, you can do something similar with a bookmark to the following: http://www.google.com/search?as_qdr=y or by setting up a custom search engine similarly.
Enjoy!
UPDATE
There is a much simpler url you can use now. Try using this in field 3:
https://www.google.com/search?tbs=qdr:y&q=%s
Replace the y (for year) with d for day, w for week or m for month if you prefer a different range. Thanks Kusa for the comment that pointed this out!
Thank you so much for figuring this out. This will save me TONS of time. I too do a lot of Ruby/JS type searches and the top results are usually out of date. Really appreciate this tip.
Thanks, software searches are great to be able to limit to a year, much appreciated!
I just realized after seeing the results I got from using your instructions how to do this on any search easily:
After you search go to search tools, which gives you more options, like to filter results to various time frames, which is what I needed. I don’t always want the filter to be 1 year.
I was trying to do this with Firefox when I realized there’s an easier way. I just downloaded the “add to search bar” addon (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-to-search-bar/), restarted firefox, manually went to google and performed a “past year” search, then cleared my search query out of the text field, right clicked it and clicked “add to search bar”, then clicked ok to save it. Now I have a “search engine” in firefox that does a google search limited to the past year.
use this instead of long string
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=qdr:d&tbo=1
[…] I found a great link that will do this, thanks Marty!:Â http://www.theflexguy.com/2013/05/16/how-to-create-a-default-date-range-for-google-search/ […]
I know this is old but THANKS! This has been driving me nuts for years.
Umm yeah, still relevant even 3 years later. Too bad I won’t be able to find this page again…
Thank you!
Was looking for that for years, thank you so much.