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Google does a good jobs finding relevant information.

Say I google: FDA's opinion on ISO-9001

Then it finds a link to a PDF on fda.gov http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/PostmarketRequirements/QualitySystemsRegulations/UCM134625.pdf

But how do I find the page on fda.gov that actually links to this .pdf?

So I can see in which regards this was published by the FDA (the document itself doesn't contain much information about when and to whom it was published for) .

fixer1234
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Norfeldt
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1 Answers1

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If I remember well there is the link: command you can write in the google page [1]:

link: www.yoursite/path/to/yourfile.pdf

It is referred [2] that with info: site you can get the pages that link to the site.

info: Get information about a web address, including the cached version of the page, similar pages, and pages that link to the site. Example: info:google.com

UPDATE:

Expressly for your link I wrote on google

link: www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/PostmarketRequirements/QualitySystemsRegulations/UCM134625.pdf

The first link is this page that at the line 683] links to your file. Note that I didn't put http:// before.

Hastur
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  • Couldn't make it work.. But I'm not even sure that the page exist? searching FDA's site gives for *UCM134625.pdf* gives only one result and this is for the file. http://google2.fda.gov/search?q=UCM134625.pdf&client=FDAgov&site=FDAgov&lr=&proxystylesheet=FDAgov&requiredfields=-archive%3AYes&output=xml_no_dtd&getfields=* – Norfeldt Feb 02 '16 at 11:03
  • @Norfeldt Updated answer. Note that I added a space even if it was said to avoid it (__!__). In general you can easily find that more than one page is linked to the same file. Or that the page that it was linked once doesn't exist any more but the file is still available... if you are not able to find the page (search in the history of your browser too) you can try to find some cached copy... – Hastur Feb 02 '16 at 11:21
  • The `link:` operator is no longer supported by Google. The text in your query is being interpreted literally as `link www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/PostmarketRequirements/QualitySystemsRegulations/UCM134625.pdf` – James P Feb 02 '16 at 11:40
  • @James You are probably right even if In [this help page](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/55281?hl=en) is still reported as example... BTW it gives at least one page that contains the link. Just for note when I do the research with or without `:` it gives me a slightly different result (188 vs 196 links). If I use `href` (instead of `link`) it decreases the number of entries found. – Hastur Feb 02 '16 at 11:55
  • Thank you very much for the help! I believe that my issue might have been caused by the `http` that I forgot to remove before searching. – Norfeldt Feb 02 '16 at 12:08
  • I tried to use the "Link report" interface from Google that you are referring to in your answer, but it does not allow me to do anything. It requires me to confirm that I am the administrator of the website. However, you do mention it as a requirement. Did the use terms changed? – Roman Riabenko Aug 24 '22 at 10:31
  • I was not referring to any interface form; at the time (6+ years ago) it wasn't there, and I understand it is intended for site administrators. BTW, the main part of the answer is still valid: enter the full link, e.g. `https://site.url/dir/subdir/name.pdf`, in the standard Google search field. If you prepend `link`, `link:` or even better `href` it may further reduce the result. The reason is in the way the page code is written (usually press CTRL-U to see it). Often, but not always, the full link is explicitly written there, and the engine will recognize it as a sentence. – Hastur Aug 24 '22 at 12:33