The most obvious reason may be the fact that the feature is hidden inside the bookmarks menu, and that users need to know about it to make use of it. Another is that keywords link to one website address only. A user wanting to define keywords for Google Search, Google Maps and Gmail would have to bookmark all three pages, and set the keywords thereafter.

The new Firefox add-on URL Keyword Completer offers a solution for this, as it combines keywords with the ability to enter additional phrases before or after the bookmarked url.

url keyword url

So how does it work in detail. Let us assume you set the keyword g to google.com. If you enter g and hit return in the address bar you are taken to google.com. If you enter g/maps you are taken to google.com/maps/ instead.

It also works in front of the keyword. Code.g for instance loads code.google.com. The extension uses its own options menu, to configure the keywords in there. This is done by opening the options of the add-on, and double-clicking to enter or edit keywords and url addresses.

Once done the keywords become immediately active. Firefox users who use keywords may find the URL Keyword Completer add-on useful, as it offers more flexibility than the original feature. The add-on is compatible with all Firefox 3 versions.

The basic principle is the same in both web browsers. The first step is to locate the search form on the website. Ghacks has the search form embedded in the sidebar on the right side of the screen. A right-click on that search form opens the context menu.

Firefox will display the entry “Add a keyword for this search” while Opera will display “Create search”. Both have the same effect. They open a small popup window that requires some input to define the keyword for the search; But do not worry, it is not complicated.

Firefox:

Opera:

The important part is the addition of a keyword that can be used in the address bar in conjunction with a search term to search the website. The keyword gh for Ghacks was chosen in this case. A search would then be conducted by using the “gh term” in the address bar of the browser.

gh screenshot would search for all articles that have been indexed with the term screenshot while gh image editor would do the same for image editors. The results are displayed as if a normal site search would have been used. This is working for most sites that offer a site search and can really save some time. Other websites where this might make sense are online shops like eBay or Amazon, hardware portals and even forums or news sites.

Five default keyword searches are enabled in Firefox, they are: “google”, “wp”, “dict”, “slang” and “quote”. This means you can search Google, Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, the Urban Dictionary and a Stock Symbol Search. It’s not complicated to add your own keyword searches to Firefox, all you need to do is add a search results page to the Firefox Bookmarks and edit this bookmark afterwards.

You need to replace the search term with %s and add a keyword to the search. Lets take my website search as an example. Type in a search term and press search. The url of the result should appear like this: http://www.ghacks.net/?s=firefox. Bookmark that page and go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks afterwards.

Right-click the newly created bookmark and select Properties from the menu. Now replace firefox with %s so that you get http://www.ghacks.net/?s=%s as the new location of the bookmark.

Now enter a keyword for the search, for example “g” without the “” obviously. You can now search my website by simply entering “g search term” in the Firefox address bar.

This only works with websites and search boxes that have the search term in the url of the results.

Let me give you an example to clear things up. You may right-click any form field in Firefox and select the menu entry Add a Keyword for this search. Selecting this opens a new Add Bookmark menu which asks for a name and a keyword. I went to ebay.com and did a right-click on their site search. I entered the keyword “e” and the name eBay.

Typing in “e computer” would have the effect that a search on eBay would be performed with the search string computer. I only have to type this phrase into the address bar to perform the search. The same method works for other websites including, Google, Yahoo, IMDB, Deviantart, Myspace and Slashdot.

There is another possibility to use keywords. Every bookmark has a keyword object that is normally empty. By assigning a keyword to a bookmark you can use that keyword to open the url. If you use gH for Ghacks for instance it would open my site if you would type in gH into the address bar. Pretty nice for sites that you do visit a lot.

Last but not least you can add wildcards to urls as well. If you edit a bookmark you see that it asks for a location and a keyword. The locations is normally the url of the website and the keyword the shortcut key. A wildcard would be added to the location to further customize a search or visit a special part of a website.

The wildcard symbol is “%s” which means that a valid location would be for instance http://%s.google.com/. If g would be assigned as the keyword you would be able to access Google websites such as adsense (adsense.google.com) or video (video.google.com).

inspiration found @ Tutorial Ninjas