Browser keywords: using the address bar as a command line

Keywords are commands you can enter in the browser address bar to quickly go to a website and perform, say, a search.

Examples

I’ve created the following keywords on my Firefox:

• “gg foo” googles for “foo”
• “we foo” searches Wikipedia for “foo”
• “dict panache” looks up “panache” in an online dictionary
• “imdb inception” looks up “inception” in IMDB.

How it works

Keywords work as follows. Given the keyword command

    we foo

This command goes to the URL

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=foo

It does so, because there is a bookmark whose keyword is we and whose URL is

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=%s

Henceforth, typing the keyword looks for this bookmark and replaces %s with the argument after we.

Tips

• Keywords in Google Chrome: “Preferences → Basics → Search → Manage Search Engines...”
• Keywords in Firefox: Go to the properties of a bookmark and set a value for “Keyword”.
• Keyboard shortcuts that work in most browsers:
  • Ctrl-T (Mac: Cmd-T) opens a new tab.
  • Ctrl-L (Mac: Cmd-L) gets you to the address bar.

Details

• Lifehacker explains the basics of keywords.
• Mozilla describes the “add a keyword for this search” feature.