How to search Google for competitions
Searching on Google is a great way for you to find new competitions, particularly if you’re looking for specific prizes or local promotions. Using filters and operators will ensure you get the most relevant results, and my video guide will walk you through how to do this!
I’ve recorded a nine minute guide to how you can use Google to search for competitions and sweepstakes – watch it and then have a go at creating and saving Google searches for your own most wanted prizes. If you don’t have a prize wishlist yet – make one now! Focusing on what you actually want to win rather than entering every competition out there should definitely be a priority.
Tips for a Google search
- Go to www.google.co.uk – NOT www.google.com – and log in if you have a Google account
- Type win and your desired prize, eg. win Italy holiday in the search box.
- When you get the results, click Tools (on mobile, swipe across to Search Tools), change Any Country to your country of choice and change Any Time to a date range of your choice – try Past week (on an Android device you may have a Recent option)
- If you want to exclude words from your search results, simply add a dash (minus sign) before the word eg. win holiday -Australia would give you holiday competitions but NOT any web pages that mention Australia!
- When you put a phrase in quotes, the results will only include pages with the same words in exactly the same order as what’s inside the quotes – for example “win a family holiday”
- Type OR in capital letters to search for pages that may have just one of two words, eg. Win holiday competition Spain OR Italy gives results for both destinations – without the OR, Google would only show websites that match both Spain and Italy.
- If you want to restrict your search to a certain website, use site: before the site address, removing any www or http://, eg. win Macbook site:forums.moneysavingexpert.com will only show you results from the MSE forum.
- If you want to exclude certain websites from your search, simply add a dash (minus sign) before site: eg. -site:myoffers.co.uk would exclude comps listed on the spam-generating My Offers website
- Try experimenting – you can combine all these different types of terms in your search box:
Spain OR Italy “win a family holiday” -site:topfox.co.uk -site:myoffers.co.uk - Search for wishlist prizes, favourite competition types and local competitions – also think about phrases that you might find in T&Cs such as “judged on creativity”, “words or less” “closing date for entries”, “proof of purchase required” – combine these with the word win or competition, and you should get plenty of comps in the results!
- Try searches for themed comps too – eg. win valentines day competition, Halloween photo competition
- Search for your name in quotes, plus Congratulations OR winner – just in case you missed any wins!
- Use browser bookmarks to save your searches so you can check them regularly for the latest competitions
- There’s advice on filtering search results using different devices on Google Support forums.
- The same tips can be used for Twitter searches too!
Set up Google Alerts
Set up Google alerts, and you’ll receive an email every time there are new results for your specified searches.
- Go to www.google.co.uk/alerts
- Type in your search terms and select UK
- Select how often you want to be emailed results – every time there’s new results, daily or weekly.
Do you have any more Google search tips? Let me know in the comments section!
If you enjoyed these tips you might like my BootComp 2023 Comping Planner and GoalSetter – if you buy a copy, you’ll have access to exclusive video guides and live Q&A sessions in the private Facebook group!
when I search I just get any time and all results not country. I am signed in to Google.
Are you using http://www.google.co.uk Brenda? It won’t work at http://www.google.com
thank you, its working now.
Please be careful people this page has lots of scams advertised here( not in the video, just the page) the rewards on flash rewards steer you to where they say you’ve won a iPhone 11 or 12 and so on, they just want shipping which is a pound out of your bank account, then the next day or two they take out obscene amounts of money because when you paid the shipping you also agree to sign up for a trial or another money grabbing experience. Also the freebies page with 8 new freebies a day, be very careful before saying send my freebie or whatever because they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch and 9 out of 10 of these offers ARE NOT FREE. You have to sign up for something first, usually anyway or you have buy this or agree to that, anything but free. Just a warning people ok. Stay safe. Don’t be click happy, think before you clink haha xx
Kelly, if you let me know the exact advertiser names I can contact MediaVine and ask them not to show those particular adverts on my website! Unfortunately I don’t have much control over the adverts that appear as I don’t know what they are – but I do always advise people to be very careful before they register for anything advertised online, if they don’t recognise or trust the brand that’s advertising!
Thank you so much for this Di! You have changed my competition game!
Loved this post, it’s netted me a couple of big wins, and I’ve found good companies and shops that I would never have com across normally, thanks Di .. x
Great video.
Is there a way to search for Gleam contests in a similar way to how you searched for rafflecopter giveaways?
There’s no magic phrase like “a raffleopter giveaway” that applies to Gleam I’m afraid – but here’s a test search I did for UK giveaways in the last week, excluding the main comp sites – you could try this to start with! https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=enter+gleam+-site:theprizefinder.com+-site:superlucky.me+-site:competitionhunter.com+-site:moneysavingexpert.com&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&tbs=qdr:w,ctr:countryUK%7CcountryGB&start=10
Good advice. Thanks Di.
That was very good. I knew a few of those but I learnt loads.
So helpful Di 🙂 Thank you xxx
I didn’t know anything about how to do such detailed searches – I only did basic question searches. I’m a self-taught silver surfer, so I found it very helpful. Thanks Di.
That was really useful, Di. I didn’t know about using minus to exclude certain sites. Right, off to put your tips into practice!
Sound advice on finding comps
Thanks Tom!
Ohhh brill, thank you Di.
Gonna have a go at this now to try it out 🙂
This is fantastic Di! Thank you 🙂 I’ve tried a few times to search for my own (especially for certain type of prizes) with very little success and these simple changes will really help! x