How To Use Firefox to Quickly Search In Google

It’s already pretty simple to use Google to search for a specific term in the provided search box next to the location bar.  But did you know there is an even simpler way?

If you have poked around a bit you already know that Firefox lets you choose what search engine you want to use by clicking on the (now-classic) Google logo and picking from the pull-down list.  This list actually is easy to modify by visiting a site like this one.  However, even if you know the keyboard shortcut to jump to the search engine box (CTRL-K and CTRL-E will both work), you still have to select the search engine you want to use.

So here is the tip:  Firefox allows you to assign search keywords to any of the defined search engines so that you can invoke them from the location bar (also known as the address bar, where you type in web URLs).  To assign a search keyword, follow these steps:

1. Click on the search engine logo next to the search bar (by default, the Google logo)
2. Select ‘manage search engines’ at the bottom of the list.
3. In the pop-up menu, click on one of the search engines.
4. Click on the ‘Edit Keyword…’ button.
5. Put in a word or a letter as the keyword.
6. Click OK to get back to the search engine list.
7. Repeat for other search engines as necessary.

Once you have the search engine keywords set up, they are really easy to use.  Get back to your browser window, and then, in the location bar, just type in the keyword, a space, and the search term.  A convenient shortcut to get to the location bar is CTRL-L.  So, if you search keyword for Google is gs, you would go to the location bar and type:

gs google [search term] [enter]

It’s that easy.  The real power is that you can do this with any search engine you gave a keyword to, so if you assigned ‘wi’ for wikipedia, just use ‘wi [term]’ without having to use the search box at all!

I’ve given you a few keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Firefox.  You can hit up this page for the full list.