March 24, 2003 | Category:

Another Reason To Switch Browsers

I just found out about another reason to switch browsers to the Gecko family (I use Phoenix personally): keyword searching.

Imagine you want to use a search engine, say Google, (or any site that provides a search facility) to quickly search for information on horses. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just type “google horses” into your address bar and have it give you all the search results? Well, you can. And here’s how to do it:

  1. Go to the site of your choice (we’ll use google), and enter a simple keyword (we’ll be using horses). You’ll get something like “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=horses” back as a URL string.
  2. Remove the search term (horses) from the URL and replace it with “%s” (with the quotations) to get something like “http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s“. Bookmark this string.
  3. Go into “Manage Bookmarks” and look at the properties for the bookmark you just created. In keywords, add “Google”.
  4. Go back to your browser and type “Google horses”, and you’ll get your search results.

Very simple, yet extremely clever. I’ve already created a few bookmarks that you can use (just add keywords): Feedster, Google, and Dictionary.com.

Remember, you should be able to do this with just about any site with a search engine, so try it out a lot. Unless you use Internet Explorer. In which case, upgrade and then try it out.

Technique via Surf*Mind*Musings