There are reports that the filetype operator within Google Search has stopped working, it has not. It doesn’t work when you add additional search operators to it, like a site command to see a specific file type on a specific type. Google has said it is likely a bug and they are working on bringing it back.
If you search for PDF files on this specific site using the command [site:seroundtable.com filetype:pdf] you currently get zero results:
But in general, if you are trying to find PDF files or other filetypes for a specific query, that still works just fine. For example; [google quality raters guidelines filetype:pdf]:
Update: It might be fixed, it works for [site:cnn.com filetype:pdf]:
Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said on X, “This is probably a bug. I’m passing it on to our team to investigate.”
Oh, Google dropped the cache link a month ago.
So this is a very specific bug in the list of so many Google bugs this month (this is just February):
Google Search Working On Fixing Indexing Issue
Bug: Google Local Pack Not Showing In Search Results
Google Drops Link To See More Local Results From Search Results (It’s Back)
Featured snippets disappear from the Google search results
Google Europe Search Hijacking Bug With TripAdvisor, Booking, Hotel.com & More
Bug With Google Shopping Exclude Search Operator
Did Google Test Removing The News Tab Or Was It A Bug?
Google Search Recipe Carousel Dropped Many Recipe Sites This Week
Google Analytics Referral Spam From Poland – Complaints
Google investigating Local Services Ads bug
Google Ads finally resolves ‘Confusing Ad Text’ issue for most users
Google Ads Sitelink Unknown Eligibility Bug
Forum discussion at X.
Update: Google fixed the issue shortly after I posted about it and confirmed it was fixed later:
