In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Google’s filetype search operator was reported missing. It might be a bug, according to the response from SearchLiaison.
What Is Filetype Search Operator
Through the use of the filetype: search operator, it is possible to conduct a search for results that are limited to particular types of files, such as text files, PDF files,.doc files, and a wide variety of such files.
What Is The Error
On Twitter, @jeroenbosman brought to people’s attention the fact that the search operator had ceased working on February 26th, which was several days earlier.
Two Google (search) options have apparently been switched off: searching by filetype and seeing the cache. The former will be missed especially, and searching for e.g. (policy) documents will become much harder because of it.
— Jeroen Bosman aka @jeroenbosman@akademienl.social (@jeroenbosman) February 26, 2024
It appears that two of the search options available on Google have been disabled: searching by filetype and seeing the cache. Particularly, the former will be missed, and as a result, the process of looking for papers such as policy documents will become significantly more difficult.
However, it must have been corrected after that because I used it on Tuesday evening, and it was functioning properly at that time. On the other hand, it may have been a few hours later when it occurred in the United States.
On the other hand, SearchLiaison replied to the tweet early on Wednesday morning (Eastern Time), stating that it obviously must be a bug.
This is probably a bug on filetype, and we’re looking into it.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 28, 2024
How Does It Work
In the event that the malfunctioning filetype search operator has not been resolved by the end of Wednesday, there is a means to restore it.
When the filetype: search operator is used with another search operator, such as the site: search operator, the filetype: search operator is able to work once more. This tweet was accurate.
Please find below a screenshot of a search that was conducted for a Microsoft Word document that was of the.doc file type and was restricted to the.gov top level domain (TLD).
