Boost Productivity with Custom Chrome Search

How Custom Chrome Search Works

To use custom Chrome search, you first need to add the website or search engine that you want to create a shortcut for. You can do this by going to the website or search engine, doing a search, and then copying the URL of the search results page.

Once you have the URL, open Chrome and go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search.

In the “Site search” section, click Add and paste the URL into the “URL” field replacing the search term at the right side of the q= with <%s>. Then, name the engine, enter the keyword that will launch this search engine in the “shortcut” field.

Click Add and your custom search shortcut will be added to the list of search engines. You can now use the shortcut to search for information on the website or search engine that you created it for, just by typing the shortcut + SPACE

Benefits of Custom Chrome Search

There are several benefits to using custom Chrome search. First, it can help you save time by giving you quick access to your favourite websites and search engines. Second, it can help you stay organised by grouping your searches together. Third, it can help you personalise your Chrome experience by adding your own keywords and shortcuts.

How to Use Custom Chrome Search

You can use custom Chrome search to search for specific terms on any of the configured engines / websites. To do this, type the keyword for the shortcut followed by a space and then the term that you want to search for. For example, if you created a shortcut for Google Cloud Search as in the example, you would type “cs” followed by a space and then the term that you want to search for.

Some use cases

Here are some search engines and keywords that I use with custom Chrome search for investigating Workspace related issues:

Engine: support.google.com
Direct access: help.
URL: https://support.google.com/search?q=%s

Engine: Workspace Toolbox Dig all
Direct access: dig.
URL: https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/dig/#ANY/%s

Engine: Cloud Search
Direct access: cs.
URL: https://cloudsearch.google.com/cloudsearch/search?q=%s

Engine: downdetector.com
Direct access: down.
URL: https://downdetector.com/search/?q=%s 

Engine: Dmarcian SPF check tool
Direct access: spf.
URL: https://dmarcian.com/spf-survey/?domain=%s

Engine: dnsviz.net DNS SEC analysis
Direct access: viz.
URL: https://dnsviz.net/search/?d=%s

Engine:Black list MX Toolbox
Direct access: bl.
URL: https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3a%s

Engine: ipinfo.io
Direct access: ip.
URL: https://ipinfo.io/%s 

Engine: Google Issue Tracker
Direct access: bug.
URL: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues?q=%s

Conclusion

Custom Chrome search is a powerful tool that can help you boost your productivity and personalise your Chrome experience. If you are not already using it, I encourage you to give it a try.

Here are some additional tips for using custom Chrome search:

• You can create custom search shortcuts for any website or search engine.
• You can use custom search shortcuts to search for specific terms on a website.
• You can organise your custom search shortcuts by grouping them together.
• You can add your own keywords and shortcuts to custom Chrome search.
• I suggest adding a dot “.” or other symbol at the end of your shortcuts to avoid launching the search engine by mistake when typing in the Chrome search bar.