The Simple TechBlog

Firefox Tip – Search keywords

One of the most time-saving, yet unused features in Mozilla’s fantastic browser is the ability to assign a keyword to a search box.

1. Go to Google Images.
2. Right-click in the search field and choose “Add a keyword for this search”
3. In the window that appears, give the search a name “Google Images” and assign it a keyword. I use “gi” and save all my keyword searches in a folder called, oddly enough, “Keyword Searches”
4. Open some other website other than Google.
5. In the address bar, type: “gi futurama” (minus the quotes)

Now you can quickly search websites that don’t offer Firefox search plugins without visiting them. I often just open a new tab and go straight to a keyword search. For me, the trick is to keep my keywords short and to a usable, memorable minimum. If you end up with so many keywords you can’t remember what keyword searches what website, then you’ve sort of defeated the purpose.

Here are some of the more useful keyword searches I have saved.

• “gi” – Google images
• “wiki” – Wikipedia
• “digg” – Digg.com
• “yt” – YouTube.com
• “imdb” – IMDB.com

Do you have any sites that you frequently search but don’t visit? Let me know in the comments.