Matthew Walther

Core Search Syntax

You will use a combination of three specific Google operators:

• site: (Limits results to a specific government domain)
• filetype: (Forces Google to show only files, like PDFs or Excel sheets, ignoring normal webpages)
• intext: (Looks for specific keywords inside those files)

Federal Government

1. The "Staff Directory" PDF Hunt Agencies often upload phone directories or organizational charts as PDFs.

• Search Pattern: site:[agency].gov filetype:pdf "directory" "email"
• Example (EPA): site:epa.gov filetype:pdf "staff directory" "@epa.gov"
• What you'll find: Internal phone lists, "Who to Call" guides, or org charts with direct lines.

FOIA/PRR Officers Every agency has a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer who must be reachable by the public. Their email often reveals the agency's standard email format.

• Search Pattern: site:[agency].gov "FOIA contact" "@[agency].gov"
• Why this helps: If the FOIA officer is john.smith@agency.gov, you now know the format is first.last. You can then guess the email of the official you actually want to reach.

3. The "Press Release" Contact

• Search Pattern: site:[agency].gov "media contact" "immediate release" "@[agency].gov"

Washington State

Washington State has a specific digital footprint. The primary domain is wa.gov, but agencies have subdomains (e.g., leg.wa.gov for the legislature).

Spreadsheets State governments love Excel. They use it for vendor lists, employee rosters, and conference registrations. These are often indexed by mistake.

• Search Pattern (Spreadsheets): site:wa.gov filetype:xlsx "email" "name" "title"
• Search Pattern (Legislative Staff): site:leg.wa.gov filetype:pdf "staff list" "@leg.wa.gov"

2. Agency Specific Search

• Standard WA Format: firstname.lastname@agency.wa.gov
• Search Pattern: site:wa.gov "program manager" "@*.wa.gov" (The `` is a wildcard that helps find different agency subdomains).*

City Government (Seattle & General)

1. The "Meeting Minutes" Artifact City Council meetings produce "minutes" (summaries) that often list the email addresses of attendees or presenters.

• Search Pattern: site:seattle.gov filetype:pdf "minutes" "@seattle.gov" -site:seattle.gov/contact
• Why the -site: part? This excludes the generic "Contact Us" pages so you dig deeper into the files.

Project Manager Artifacts

• Search Pattern: site:seattle.gov "project manager" "questions" "@seattle.gov"
• Search Pattern (bids/contracts): site:seattle.gov filetype:pdf "RFP" "contact" "@seattle.gov"

3. Seattle Specific Email Format

• Standard: firstname.lastname@seattle.gov
• Council Members: Usually firstname.lastname@seattle.gov directly, though they publicly advertise council@seattle.gov.

Summary of "Artifact" Keywords

Swap out these keywords to find different types of documents: