Social networking giant facebook is having more than 200 million active users and this makes finding people, friends and other stuff on facebook really a tough task. So here are some great tips/tricks for searching facebook that can really save you a lot of time while searching.
1: How to find/search people on facebook: There are simple search shortcuts for finding people on facebook, just type user: or users: or people: or name:, give a space and type any name you want to search for. Suppose you want to search for the name “kelly smith” then here is how your search query should look like user: kelly smith , after performing this search facebook will show up all the facebook users (only users not any application or group) with name kelly smith.
2: How to search facebook pages, applications, and groups on facebook: The search shortcut for finding facebook pages is fbpage: or page: , for facebook applications it is application: or applications: and for finding facebook groups it is group: or groups:
3: How to search facebook for two things at the same time: On your keyboard on the backlash key you will find the | character, also known as a “pipe”, this character will separate two queries and search for them at the same time. For example, the search results displayed after searching John Doe | Jane Doe includes both John Doe search results with Jane Doe search results in the same list.
4: Combine two or more facebook search shortcuts to make your search more effective: There are some search shortcuts that can be combined to make the facebook search more effective. Suppose you are searching facebook for someone by name then for making your search more accurate and brief you can further impose few search filters like that of “Gender” , “Age range” etc. For example if you want to trim down the search results by imposing age range filter then you would have to use these two parameters y1: as the minimum age and y2: as the maximum age in your search query. The overall search query would look like this: name: kelly y1: 20 y2: 30 which will list the people named “Kelly” who are between 20 and 30 years old.
Similarly you can combine search shortcut user: or users: or people: or name: (all these shortcuts are same) with company: or work: search shortcut. So the search query name: kelly smith company: facebook will list all the facebook users named “Kelly smith” who works at facebook.
Some other posts about facebook that you may find useful:
1: How To Get Rid Of Annoying Facebook Quizzes: Making Facebook More Productive.
2: How To Get Desired Facebook Profile URL: Facebook Vanity URLs
Shahab khan is a Tech blogger from India & a founder of VirginTech. He blogs about Technology, internet, Social media, computer tips & tricks and Web 2.0. 
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Quite a nice tutorial.
Great tips, these are almost like google search operators.
Point no. 4 is great, really useful:-)
Searching facebook is really easy with these tips, great post man:-)
Eric
Hmm…do this shortcuts still work? dont know how to use them
Manuel
Hi Manuel!
These shortcuts work and that too quite effectively!
Please read the post once more, i have explained each and every shortcut in detail!
Hi
Nice tips
Just wanted to know if there is any way to filter users
E.G.
I am a fan of GTA-Vice City
IS it possible to filter fans of the group according to location, India/Mumbai specifically?
Well rohit as far as i know, I think there is no way to do it at present. May be it will come in the future.
BTW..Thanks Rohit for your comment.
Hello! Great article, but I think this doesnt work anymore on Facebook. When i try your example “name: kelly y1: 20 y2: 30″ I dont get anyting. Any ideas?
@Marko, Thanks for the Appreciation Marko!
Well i also noticed the same thing that that most of the operators are not working but few are still working like if you use “user:” operator along with some name it will display the trimmed results.
I think if seacrh operators are not working then try performing search this way:
Enter your query (whatever you are looking for ) and then Hit the “enter” in the search field and you will see few links (People, Pages , Groups , Applications, Events ) in the left sidebar. Now if you are looking for facebook groups (say) then click on the “Groups” link and your results will include only facebook groups.
The Same concept applies for Events , users, applications.
I hope this will help you.
plz sir
I want to know the link how to find on facebook in advance, i already have the link like how to meet new people and are you interested……….bye