Firefox Keyword Searches You Can Use Right Now

One of the features almost nobody uses (but should) is the ability to use keywords for custom searches in the Firefox web browser. This has been around ever since Firefox 2, and once you start using it you’ll wonder how you ever browsed without it.

Keyword searches all you to use the address bar to perform common searches on other web sites without having to go to that web site first.

Confused? Don’t worry, it will all make sense in a moment.

To create a keyword search, all you have to do is find any web site with a search function, right-click inside the search field and create your keyword search from there.

Here’s how you would do it using the PCMech.com public web site:

1. Go to www.pcmech.com

2. Locate the search field. On PCMech it happens to be at the top right, like this:

3. Right-click inside the search field and choose Add a Keyword for this search, like this:

(Note: Your menu may look slightly different depending on how many Firefox add-ons you have installed – but the Add a Keyword for this Search… will always be there.)

From the small New Bookmark new window that appears, name this bookmark PCMech Search and the keyword as pcmech, like this:

Then click the Save button.

Now comes the fun part.

In your Firefox address bar, type pcmech computer, like this:

Now press Enter. Watch what happens.

A search is performed for computer on the pcmech.com web site!

 

At any time you can perform a site search right from your address bar in Firefox using the pcmech keyword you just bookmarked.

You can do this for any site that has a search field. Right-click in the search field, title it, keyword it, save it and you’re done.

A list of useful keyword searches you can put into your Firefox browser right now

How to use these:

Click Bookmarks then Organize Bookmarks, like this:

From the new window that appears, highlight Bookmarks Menu on the left, like this:

 

Create a new bookmark by clicking Organize (see above screen shot, it’s at the top) and then New Bookmark. You’ll see this each time you do that:

Simply follow along below for each entry to place into your Firefox browser. While organizing your bookmarks, remember that you can also add in folders and such for better organization.

Here’s the list. Simply copy and paste from below for each bookmark you create.

Bing.com Search

What this does: Searches the internet using Bing.com

Name: Bing
Location: http://www.bing.com/search?q=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: b

Use in address bar:

b [search term here]

Example:

b computer

The above will search bing.com for computer.

(For the remainder of the entries below, they all operate the same way. Use the keyword/letter, then a search term, then press Enter when using in the address bar and it will perform the appropriate search.)

Google Blog Search

What this does: Searches blogs using the Google Blog Search service

Name: Google Blogs
Location: http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: blog

Bing Map Search

What this does: Searches and plots maps using the Bing.com Maps service

Name: Bing Maps
Location: http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?where1=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: bm

Additional notes

Use from and to operators for quick directions.

Example:

bm from tampa fl to clearwater fl

Google Define (Dictionary Search)

What this does: Defines words or phrases

Name: Define
Location: http://www.google.com/search?q=define:%20%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: d

Additional notes

This also works as a handy spell checker. If you’re not sure how to spell a word, search for it using this anyway. If you get it wrong, the search result returned will be "Did you mean [this]" with [this] being the correct spelling of the word.

Google Search

What this does: Searches the internet using Google.com

Name: Google
Location: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: g

Google Image Search

What this does: Searches the internet for images

Name: Google Images
Location: http://images.google.com/images?q=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: i

Google Maps Search

What this does: Searches and plots maps using the Google Maps service

Name: Google Maps
Location: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: map

Additional notes

Use from and to operators for quick directions the same as you would with Bing Maps search above. 

Wikipedia Search

What this does: Searches the English Wikipedia.com web site for article content

Name: Wikipedia
Location: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: wiki

Weather Underground Search

What this does: Provides weather and forecast information for areas

Name: Weather Underground
Location: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: wu

Additional notes

For super-quick access to weather, use your ZIP or postal code.

Example:

wu 33601

ZipInfo.com Search

What this does: Gives you the ZIP code for any town or city in the U.S.

Name: ZipInfo.com
Location: http://zipinfo.com/cgi-local/zipsrch.exe?zip=%s
Tags: (none)
Keyword: zip

Additional notes

You need to type out searches specifically for this to work correctly. It’s easy to remember. All you have to do is remember the comma between city and state.

Example:

zip tampa, fl

Another example:

zip boston, ma