How to search IMDB, Wikipedia and more from the address bar

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  • Revision id: 299707
  • Created:
  • Creator: Mark Heijl
  • Comment: minor edits
  • Reviewed: Yes
  • Reviewed:
  • Reviewed by: ffloare
  • Is approved? Yes
  • Is current revision? No
  • Ready for localization: No
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Smart keywords are an easy way to search specific websites from the Firefox address bar. Instead of going to the targeted website and navigating to their search, you can start your site-specific search from any site using the address bar.

For example, suppose you search The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) regularly. You can define a smart keyword such as "imdb", then you can search IMDB for information. For example, to search William Shatner, you would enter "imdb William Shatner" in the address bar.

ImdbSearch

Add a smart keyword for search

  1. Visit the website that has the search you want to use and click on the search field.
  2. Right-clickHold down the Control key while you click to open the Context Menu.
  3. Select Add a Keyword for this Search....
  4. The Add Bookmark dialog box appears. You can edit the bookmark name, select the bookmark folder to contain the smart keyword, and enter the keyword that will be used for the search (e.g. "imdb").
AddSearchKeywordSearch Address Bar Win2

To use this created smart bookmark, type the keyword and the search string in the address bar and press EnterReturn.

SearchKeywordExampleSearch Address Bar Win3

Add a custom search engine in Settings

You can add custom search engines from websites in Firefox, even if they’re not supported.

  1. Go to the main menu IG main menu, and click Settings.
  2. Go to Search.
  3. Scroll down to Search Shortcuts.
  4. Click Add.
    searchshortcut
  5. Fill in the Search engine name with a name for your custom search engine.
  6. In the URL box, copy & paste the URL of the custom search engine.
  7. Replace the URL’s search tag with %s.
  8. Add a keyword (this is optional).
  9. Click Add Engine to save.
    searchengineimbd
Note: You can find the URL’s search tag by performing a unique search with an easy-to-spot word, such as “ZZZZZZ”. The “ZZZZZZ” in the URL is that URL’s search tag. For example, if you search for Tangled on IMBD, the link is going to look like this: https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=tangled&ref_=nv_sr_sm; replace "tangled" with "%s".