Internet Explorer 9 users click on the Tools icon in the upper right corner of their browser and select Manage Add-ons from the context menu. This opens the add-on manager that displays all toolbars, extensions and search providers installed in the browser. Switch to search providers to see a list of search engines currently available in the browser.

One of the search providers is listed as the default search engine under Status. If you are lucky enough, the new search provider that you want to use is already in the list. If that is the case select the new provider and click on the Set as default button afterwards to switch the default search engine in Internet Explorer.

It is furthermore possible to select a specific search provider manually for a search query that you enter into Internet Explorer’s address bar.

But what can you do if the search provider is not in the list? Easy; You visit the Internet Explorer add-ons gallery and use the available categories, like travel, search or news, or the built-in search to find the provider you are looking for. Please note that everything is mixed up in the beginning. You can use the pulldown menu at the bottom right to filter for search providers so that all other add-on types are not displayed anymore.

You add a new search provider with a click on the add-ons icon on the add-ons website and the selection of Add to Internet Explorer on the next page.

This opens a small confirmation window. You need to click on Add to install the new search provider. Options are available to make that provider the default search provider of the browser.

The new search provider is available right after it has been added to the web browser.

Boounce for the Firefox web browser makes this process a lot easier to handle. On first glance it does nothing more than adding additional search engine links to the bottom of the results listing of supported search engines.

When you click on another search engine there you are taken directly to the search results page of that search engine. There is a twist though that many users will appreciate: Boounce automatically hides duplicate results. The idea behind this is simple. You have not found what you are looking for when switching search engines which means that it does not make sense to display duplicate results.

You can still display the results that have been automatically hidden by the add-on if you want.

Take this search for patio sets for instance. You see the icons that the Firefox extension has added at the very bottom of the results page.

The search engines that are displayed depend on the search phrase. You may only see links to other search engines or shopping related sites mixed in. The latter is for instance the case for the test search query.

You see links to popular search engines like Bing, Google, Blekko or Wolfram Alpha, as well as links to Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon or NexTag.

A click on another search engine opens the engine’s results page in a new tab in the browser. Boounce adds a toolbar to the Firefox browser which you can easily enable or disable. It is not really needed for the functionality but may be convenient for some users who use the extension day in day out.

It needs to be noted at this point that the search engine icons are only displayed when you search using Bing or Google. If you use another search engine as your default, you won’t see the icons at all which leaves the toolbar as another option to run related searches more efficiently.

The toolbar offers another interesting feature. It supports group searches. What this basically means is that you can select to search sites that have been grouped by the makers of Boounce or by you simultaneously.

Just select a group from the extensive selection, for instance Download > Mobile Apps > Android, Business > Finance or Programming and IT > Webmaster. The extension displays the top sites in the toolbar. You can now click on a single site to perform the search, or double-click on a site to open multiple search tabs at once (four is the default value, you can change that in the options).

It appears that you need an account to create your own set of groups. While it is possible to create a custom group in the toolbar, I have not found a way to add search engines to it. The Boounce homepage features a groups gallery that list user generated groups and a list of all supported search engines (more than one thousand according to the developers).

What I like most about Boounce is that it automatically hides duplicate results when you use it to display results in another search engine. I could not move the Boounce icon from the navigation toolbar in Firefox (which I do not use) to another.

Firefox users can download and install Boounce from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Today Bing announced that they have added a second authoritative feature called Action Buttons. Action button basically suggest common actions performed on the site. The Bing community blog has two examples for that.

First the results page for United Airlines which lists the United Airlines homepage as an authority site. The action buttons for the United Airlines result case are Check in, Flight status and Book a flight. These buttons are displayed on the right of the search result.

The second example is for a car rental company and the action buttons Rent a car, Locations and Contact us relate to that.

The first thing that I noticed was that some of the site links led to the same pages on the site. This resulted in a few follow up questions that I had. For instance, why is it necessary to display actions twice in the results. And as a consequence, if it is not time to revamp the sitelinks part of the algorithm on Bing to make sure that sitelinks and actions are not identical.

There are arguments for the way Microsoft is laying out those information on the page. The action buttons are larger than the sitelinks, which makes them more prominent on the results page. Search engine users on the other hand are used to sitelinks, and some might feel left alone when those links suddenly display different kinds of pages for sites that they visit regularly (do not get me started on why they do not access the sites directly. Many use search engines for everything, even if they visit a site daily).

You will notice some irregularities when it comes to the new feature. Banks for instance return only a log in action button and nothing else. Viable options here would be to link to the bank’s contact and support pages.

Regardless of that I think that it is an interesting idea that works very well for some industries, and not so well for others. What’s your take on Action Buttons.

The bill, called PROTECT IP, would allow the Department of Justice to seek a court order against sites accused of copyright violations. The order would be served against ISPs, internet advertisers, domain name providers and search engines. The site thus targeted would be required to disappear as soon as possible.

Eric Schmidt said that Google would not support the bill if it were to be passed. He said: “”If there is a law that requires DNSs to do X and it’s passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it.” … “If it’s a request the answer is we wouldn’t do it, if it’s a discussion we wouldn’t do it.”

On one hand, supporters of free speech are applauding Google’s stance. There are far too many stories of content creators who have had their content pulled due to DMCA violations that either were not violations or were an unfair use of a draconian law. Giving even more weight to that law seems unwise if your major concern is the freedom of information. Critics fear that the bill would give the government a way to vanish sites at will.

The central problem with Schmidt’s pronouncement is that Google’s stance has not been quite so clear in the past. Not long ago, the company was threatening to remove the Pirate Bay and other sites like it from AdSense, and attempting to stop block terms connected with piracy from the instant search function.

Even as recently as April, Google’s general counsel Kent Walker was in front of Congress testifying as to Google’s antipiracy solutions. He outlined what Google has done thus far, but did caution against strong antipiracy measures that might create problems of their own. He was not nearly as outspoken as Schmidt.

So, why the switch? Why is Google all of a sudden not quite so willing to give the boot to piracy sites? Could it have something to do with the fact that when it was in favor of restrictions on piracy sites, it was attempting to garner deals with the record industry for its music service? Now that it’s released the service without need for licenses, maybe it’s not quite so willing to play ball with the big label companies.

It’s refreshing to see someone willing to stand up to the government in favor of free speech. I only hope that Google’s motives have as much to do with rights as it does with their business strategies.

What are your thoughts? What do you think of Schmidt’s stance? What do you think of the US bill? Do you think the bill will pass?

I’m seldom in a test group, but today was different. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Google is testing a new result’s page design.

Take a look at the following page:

Notice anything significantly on that page? Right, both the layout and style have changed dramatically. The titles use a light blue color instead of the standard link color. They are also not underlined anymore.

The description and url use lighter colors as well, and the row height has been changed. The space between results has been increased, and the Cached and Similar Links have been removed.

Here is a screenshot of Google’s old search results layout.

What are the implications? For one, you need to scroll down to see all ten results. I’m running a 1920×1200 resolution which allowed me until now to see all ten search results without scrolling. On the new search results page, I only see eight or nine results on page load.

The lighter title colors make the titles harder to read, and the overall page feels brighter which is more taxing for the eye.

Overall I’d say that the test layout and design is a step backwards. The space between results is to big, the “whiter” colors are taxing my eyes and the missing cached and similar links are missed dearly.

It is unlikely that Google will roll out this new results page to all users of its search engine.

Do you see the new search layout as well? What’s your impression of it if you are?

Update: some users have reported that clearing the cookies reverted the search results page to its old glory. Check out our guide: How To Delete Cookies On A Computer if you do not know how to do that.

There is however a gap between the Firefox user interface and those search engines. If you want to search, you can either use the built-in search to search on the default search engine (or switch search engines manually before you search on another site), access search websites manually to make the search there directly or make use of extensions that add search options to the context menu or the Firefox interface.

Drag and Drop Zones adds another – innovative – option. The Firefox add-on overlays the entire browser screen sans the user interface elements with drop zones for specific search engines and options. The extension imports all existing local Firefox search engines by default and makes them available on the overlay. New search engines need to be added to the list of available search engines before they become available for selection.

You can move search engines around on the grid in the add-on options. Here it is furthermore possible to remove drop zones, change the overlay color of individual search engines, add new search engines to the overlay or configure general add-on settings.

This includes the the grid size, delay before showing the dropzones and various activation options.

Dropzones are by default activated when you drag text, images or links in Firefox.

To search for a phrase or word on a website you would highlight it, drag it and drop it on the search engine in the overlay that you would like to use.

You can define different colors for search engines, which could be interesting to create search engine groups. The drag search process can be canceled at anytime with the ESC key.

It is not only possible to link search engines to a grid. All context menu items can also be added to grids, which adds new possibilities to the add-on. It is now for instance possible to create drop boxes that save images, bookmark links or print the selected text.

A toolbar button is available to enable and disable the Drag and DropZones add-on. This can be important if you need to perform other drag and drop operations in the Firefox web browsre.

Drag and Drop Zones adds a lot of flexibility to searching and using the context menu. The addition of new search engines could be more comfortable, but that’s the only minor complaint that I have.

Interested users can download the Firefox extension Drag & DropZones from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository. The add-on is compatible with all Firefox versions from Firefox 2 on.

You see, every site that gets blocked is submitted to Google. Google engineers will “study the resulting feedback” and “explore using it as a potential ranking signal” for Google Search.

As a webmaster, I see the danger of it, more than I see the benefit. What’s keeping a company from hiring an army of Indian users to block websites of companies that rank before them in Google Search? It won’t be long before the first service offers appear on webmaster forums that offer a service like that: 100 blocks for $10, 1000 for $75. Oh and before you start wondering, the topic is already discussed in popular Black Hat forums.

Anyway, another interesting question is why it is only offered for Google Chrome. Google could very well have added an option to block sites directly into Google Search.

Possible explanations include that Google may receive additional information from the Chrome browser that they would not receive if the blocking would be available directly on the search engine pages, and that it would be available everywhere providing that it would be linked to a Google account. Another that a Google engineer created the blocking extension during free time.

If you look at user comments over at the Chrome store you notice that many have blocked experts-exchange immediately and not “content farms” such as ehow, about, or Demand Media which are pumping out thousands of articles per day.

The extension lacks several features like syncing or the ability to import and export blocklists. Another negative aspect is that the Personal Blocklist extension only removes or blocks entries from the search engine which means that fewer results appear per page.

The extension can be beneficial purely from a user perspective but it is not the first that does it (see Blacklist Google Search Results In Google Chrome). If the blocking is indeed used by Google as a ranking signal then people will start abusing it for their personal gain.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine managed to grow from 9% to 13.6 in the last twelve months, while Yahoo fell sharply from 17.1% to 14.3 and Google Search moderately from 65.2% to 64.2%.

In total percentages, Bing managed to gain 51% in the last twelve months while both Google and Yahoo dropped.

All three search engines combined account for a total of 92.1% of all searches in the US.

us search engine market share

The number of searches confirms that trend even more. The number of searches conducted dropped from 10.5 billion in July 2009 to 8.8 billion one year later. Bing managed to increase the search volume by 28% while both Google Search (17%) and Yahoo Search (30%) lost search volume.

us search volume

Several factors play a role here. First, Microsoft did launch Bing 14 months ago and it is likely that the search engine picked up momentum in the first months after start. And then there is the huge marketing campaign for Bing.

But can it all be attributed to that, or are there other factors that play a role? Yahoo without doubt will continue to decline in the coming months, especially since their US search traffic has been effectively handed over to Bing.

Google has experimented a lot in the last twelve months, and not always for the better. The search engine has added elements to the search results pages, especially the new sidebar, more ads and more links to other services, the majority of which are owned by Google as well.

The search quality seems to have deteriorated in that time, and while not everyone sees it yet, it seems as if it will continue to deteriorate in the next twelve months.

Have you tried out Bing yet? Why do you think that Bing gained market share while Google did not?

Search becomes polluted with ads and additional options that most users do not want or seem to care about. Even worse, the search quality seems to have dropped in that time as well.

The newest addition to Google Search is a change for some searches, that will have a huge impact on search engine users and webmasters.

Before the change, a single domain could only occupy two slots of the ten available slots on any page in the results. Authoritative sites were able to get an additional boost with site links, displayed under their first result.

With the change, a single site can occupy up to seven of the ten slots on any Google search results page, leaving three for other domains.

The example that Samarth Keshava, Software Engineer at Google gives is a search for exhibitions at amnh which now displays seven results from the official American Museum of Natural History website in the top seven slots of the search results.

Why is that bad? Mainly because the first link in the search results lists the official exhibitions page at the museum. The remaining six results lists specific exhibitions, which the user could also access by clicking on the first search result.

And Google did even offer a solution for this cases until now by displaying the “more results from domain” beneath the search listing.

And then there is the site: command, which would only display search results from a specific domain if desired.

There are situations where a query like this may make sense, for instance when looking for articles on a specific site, e.g. ghacks windows which now behaves similar to the site command, by displaying multiple site listings of the site.

In the end, it depends on the reach of the new feature. If Google has managed to limit it to very specific queries, where users are searching for information from the site, then it’s a welcome addition.

If they however did not find the right ratio, then it may put a lot of businesses and websites in jeopardy. Webmasters who would like to discuss the topic find threads in all popular webmaster forums, including Webmaster World.

What’s your take on this change in Google Search?

You may now be asking yourself what all that has to do with the Firefox add-on Search Crumbs. That’s relatively easy to answer: Search Crumbs makes searching easier and faster in Firefox.

The add-on installs itself in the right-click context menu of the browser. Firefox users can use it from the moment of the installation to perform searches. Selecting text on a page for instance will search for that text in the selected search engine. But Search Crumbs can do more than the usual select text search routine. The add-on offers the same functionality in text boxes, text areas, page titles or hyperlinks.

search crumbs

Search Crumbs displays search engines in the context menu. The add-on separates so called root search engines, which are popular search engines that can be directly accessed in the root menu, and content based search engines which are listed in directories. Content based search engines are by default available for image, video, meta, social and merchants searches.

firefox search engine

The order and placement of the search engines can be edited in the add-on’s configuration. It is for instance possible to add an image search engine to the root search engines, to access it more quickly.

New search engines can be added easily. All that needs to be done is to select one of the existing folders – or create a new one – and enter the search engine’s name and url. The url needs to be edited to include the [search] variable in the right place. This variable is used by Search Crumbs for the searches. A look at the existing search engines should provide enough detail on how the variable has to be added.

The structure of the available search engines in the context menu is completely configurable in the options. Search engines can be removed, moved, replaced or added, so that the end results suits the needs of the individual user.

Search Crumbs is an unobtrusive but extremely helpful Firefox add-on for users who perform searches in multiple search engines regularly. Search engines in this context means all websites that are offering search, which includes Facebook, Myspace, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Amazon or eBay next to the traditional search engines.

Search Crumbs is only compatible with Firefox 3.6x. It is likely that compatibility can be forced if another version of Firefox is in use. Check out our article on how to force compatibility in Firefox for pointers on how to do that.

During that period part of Yahoo’s Live search results will be powered by Bing, “with paid search volume in particular kept low enough to help minimize any potential impact” to Yahoo advertiser accounts.

Yahoo aims for a transition in the August / September timeframe for Bing powered organic search results if the “testing continues to yield high quality results”.

What does that mean for the search engine market? It means that Microsoft’s Bing will increase its search volume closing the gap to Google, which is dominating search.

The total market share depends on how the data is accumulated. Google is usually listed with a market share between 65% and 85%, Bing with 3% to 10% and Yahoo between 6% and 15%. In best case, Bing will increase its search engine reach to 25% of the total market share, Barry Schwartz at the Search Engine Land website even sees Bing powering 30% of paid and organic search queries globally after the transition finishes.

What does it mean for search engine visitors? The search results will ultimately be the same on Bing and Yahoo Search. The only differences are the additional features that are offered on the two search engine websites.

It is likely that Yahoo users will continue to use Yahoo for their searches, considering that they are likely using other Yahoo features such as Yahoo Mail as well, some might switch to Bing if they do not use any Yahoo services, others might switch to Google because of search result differences.

Microsoft Bing, with the additional data provided by Yahoo Search, may be able to improve the quality of the search results which could improve the search engine’s market share in the long run.

Search Selected makes the process easier by enabling a global hotkey that will automatically launch a search for the selected phrase. Global hotkey means that search can be launched from any application in Windows where text can be selected.

Search Selected runs silently in the background until the keyboard shortcut [CTRL Shift C] is activated. The tool will automatically launch a search for the selected search phrase in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The only option that is offered by the program is a selection of search engines including Google Search, Bing or Yahoo Search.

The only aspect of the program that some users might not like is the fact that searches are opened in Internet Explorer with no option to change the web browser. This happens even if Internet Explorer is not the default web browser.

The background process is lightweight and uses less than 5 Megabytes of computer memory. Users who are interested in the software program can download it from the developer’s website.

Blind Search allows you to compare the results of Google, Bing and Yahoo. You search for a term in it, and it brings up all 3 results side-by-side, but you are not told which site is which. You then say which you think is better, and the names are then revealed!

After using the site a dozen or so times, a clear image of what is the best search engine for you forms.

I was surprised that Google was only best for me in about a third of searches; I found Bing’s results much more relevant. (The creator of the site works for Microsoft though; although it isn’t affiliated to them!)

They also offer an OpenSearch plug-in (so it can be added to Firefox’s search bar, for example) and a plugin IE8. It also works for image search. Unfortunately, the site currently only works in US localisations, so one can’t use it to search google.co.uk etc.

These search terms are more dangerous than, lets say warez, because most users know that warez can lead to malicious software quite easily while they most likely do not suspect the same from these popular search terms.

The McAfee researches searched for more than 2600 popular keywords examining the first five pages of results across five popular search engines with McAfee’s Site Advisor technology. The top 50 most dangerous search terms in the US were listed in the research paper as well. The phrase “word unscrambler” is taking up the top spot followed by lyrics, myspace and free music downloads.

The researches discovered that lyrics and free made up the two most category-specific risks on the web these days. The research paper can be downloaded directly at McAfee.

The search engine mashup displays a single search form on the main page. It will perform searches on both Bing and Google and display the results in two columns on the same page with the Microsoft Bing search engine on the left and the Google search engine on the right. This makes it easier to work with both search engines and compare results in the same window.

The service displays its search form on the top of the screen so that users can perform additional searches on both search engines right away. It is furthermore possible to use a search form in one of the columns to search in one search engine exclusively. The search for web browser that is shown in the image above shows that both search engines list Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome (Google Browser), Safari and Flock on the main page. Google links to the Maxthon web browser additionally while Microsoft to the defunct Netscape browser. Funny though that both are not linking to Internet Explorer on their first results page.

Both columns offer the full functionality offered by the search engine including image and video search. Bing And Google offers an easy to use mashup that delivers results from both Bing and Google making it extremely convenient to work with and compare both search engines.

Advanced tips are not that easy to come by and most websites running a WordPress blog do not have them implemented. This article will list some options that center around the nofollow tag. Nofollow basically tells search engines like Google to not count the link vote that is usually being passed when linking on the Internet. Why is that beneficial? A website has a certain linking power. Each link that is pointing to internal and external resources gets a piece of that linking power. Not all pages should be treated equally however which is what this article is about. It makes for example no sense to pass linking power to internal pages that you do not want to link for, think of privacy policies, contact pages, login, log off or social bookmarking links.

WordPress themes come with a surprising amount of links, the majority of which is not set to nofollow. Here are a few areas where you should consider placing the nofollow link tag in a WordPress blog:

• The more (read more) tag. The page is already linked from the title of the post properly.
• WordPress meta data
• Pages like Privacy Policies, Contact Us
• Social Bookmarking links

To add the nofollow link one would simply add the rel="nofollow"
tag to the link structure which is not a problem if the link is displayed in the source code of the theme, for example:

<a href="http://www.example.com/" rel="nofollow">Example Link</a>

There are however links (like the previously mentioned more tag) that cannot be manipulated in the theme source as the link is created by a php function.

Here is how you make the more tag in WordPress nofollow:

• Open the file post-template.php in the wp-includes folder.
• Locate the following line beginning with:

  $output .= ‘ <a href="’. get_permalink()..

• Replace it with:

  $output .= ‘ <a href="’. get_permalink() . "#more-$id\" class=\"more-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">$more_link_text</a>";

• You basically add the rel=\"nofollow\" tag to the line

This ensures that all more tags will be nofollow from then on.

If you’re looking for Photoshop tutorials, Vunky Search is the place to go to. This site labels itself as the ‘Fast and Furious Photoshop Tutorial Browser’ or in other words, a Photoshop search engine. Both in looks and function, Vunky Search resembles one of the many multi-torrent search engines out there.

When you look at the homepage, you notice the links to popular searches. Below that are some of the featured tutorials for the day. If you’re searching for something specific, type in a search term. If you’re browsing around, just ‘randomize’ or click on a link that interests you. The selected tutorial opens in its original site with no hassles.

Vunky Search currently indexes 88 tutorials but I expect this number to increase over time. Some of the tutorials are simply superb. One more thing I’d like to see is tutorials for more software like Paint and the GIMP. After all, not everyone uses Photoshop.

What do you think of Vunky Search? How do you think the site can be improved? What’s your favorite image tutorials site? Let me know in the comments.

UK

In the UK, Everyclick is a website which provides an Ask-based search engine which donates much of its revenue to a charity of your choice (so the more you search, the more they donate) and also provides an online shop with links to most major retailers, with a commission being donated. Nearly any registered charity can sign up for this service.

ClickNow styles itself as ‘the community search engine’ and provides portals for over 200 of British charities. These portals also include an Ask-powered search engine, ‘shopping malls’ (with commission going to charity) and a travel agency, where 5% of the cost of the holiday goes to charity. However, this site does not seem as good as Everyclick as each charity has its own distinct portal and the site’s design is not attractive.

US

Windows Live provides Americans with a search engine, Search and Give, which contributes to nearly any American charity or school, which the user desires. The site is very clean and simple compared to many charity search engines and is not plastered with advetisements. Windows Live Messenger’s ‘i’m’ initiative is another way, where if a certain emoticon is used in IMs, money will go to charity.

GoodSearch is another option for Americans, which seems to be very similar to Everyclick but is powered by Yahoo!. GoodSearch also provides an option to shop online ad let charities collect a commission.

Europe

VeoSearch is a charity search engine with a European focus, earning money for British, French, Belgian, German and Swiss charities, which are involved with social work, environment protection or sustainable economics. The search engine is available in French, German and English.

US, Europe and Japan

Effortless Good is a Firefox extension which donates a percentage of any purchases made on Amazon US, UK, Canada, France, Germany or Japan. This runs completely in the background!

Most of these tools take a cut for themselves, either for profit or for development, and this is worth investigating before using. Registration is also usually required, so it is known which charities are being supported.

It can be very cumbersome to go to each video site, type in your search query, and then sort through the results. You can simplify the entire process by using MetaTube. MetaTube is a search engine for video-sharing sites and claims to search 100 of them all at once.

The home page has a simple interface, which looks just like a torrent multi-search engine. You type in your search query and you can also see a list of the recent searches made by other people. When you click the search button, the site searches through its catalogue of video-sharing sites. The screenshot of the home page below reveals just what videos people are looking for.

MetaTube searches major sites like YouTube, Google Video, AOL Uncut, Veoh, etc. as well as the more obscure sites like iKlipz, Jubii, Flixya, etc. By default, the first search results displayed are from YouTube. If you want to see results from other sites, click on the site of choice in the index on the left-hand side of the page.

I liked the site for the primary reason that it simplifies things. No more searching separately in each site for the video I’m looking for. Even if you’re not really into online videos, this is definitely a site worth bookmarking.

What do you think of MetaTube? Do you know of any other search engines for video-sharing sites? Let me know in the comments.

Everyone is constantly searching for information and Firefox users are in the great position to be aided by hundreds of search extensions that make searching easier, comfortable and faster.

To much choice on the other hand puts some pressure back on the user who now has to pick the useful extensions and cast the other that are not helping him aside. That’s where this article comes into play. It lists the Firefox Search Extensions that you need to search the Internet professionally. They help you find the information you are looking for faster and efficiently.

The following list contains useful search plugins that can speed up the information finding process tremendously. No toolbar plugins have been included in the list.

General Search Plugins:

Add to Search Bar – Lots of websites provide search forms which can be used to search the contents of those sites. The Add To Search Bar plugin makes it possible to add those to the list of Firefox search engines so that the search can be conducted from the search function in Firefox.

Advanced URL Builder – Add custom searches to the Firefox right-click menu.

CacheIt! 1.0 – It happens sometimes that a website is not responding. It could be down or moving to another server. CacheIt provides access to cached versions of the page so that the information can be retrieved even if the original website is not responding.

Context Search – Only Google Search is available by default when highlighting a term in Firefox. This plugin adds additional search engine options to the menu so that the user can perform searches on Yahoo, Amazon or eBay.

Cooliris – Formerly Piclens. Provides 3D browsing for Image and Videos searches. Creates stunning effects.

CyberSearch – Supercharges the Firefox 3 Location Bar with search results that appear instantly. Perform searches in the location bar without having to open a search engine.

Dict – Look up Word definitions of highlighted words by right-clicking them and selecting the appropriate action.

Find In Tabs – Perform searches among multiple tabs. This works pretty well in conjuction with the MultiSearch plugin.

HighlightAll – Pressing Control F in Firefox opens a search form that allows the user to search on the active page. Highlight All highlights all occurrences of the search term on the page making it easier to find them.

Interclue – Find out what’s behind a search result before clicking the link.

MultiSearch – Ever wanted to search for multiple search terms at once? MultiSearch steps in and makes that possible. Just enter search terms and a comma delimiter to open search results for each of the terms in individual tabs. The terms Firefox, Mozilla, Thunderbird would open three tabs each displaying search results for one of the terms.

Search Keys 0.8.1 – Search Keys adds keyboard navigation to search results pages of Google, Yahoo and Delicious. Instead of clicking on a search term the user can press the assigned number on his keyboard to open the website. This makes it possible to perform a search and open results without using the mouse at all.

Searchbar Autosizer – Automatically resizes and clears the searchbar. Can also revert back to the default search engine. Useful add-on for minimalistic Firefox themes.

Surf Canyon – Search Engine Assistant – A search assistant that automatically recommends and ranks search results based on the users choice. It can pull data from search results pages that are currently not shown to the user.

Who Is This Person? – Highlight a name on a webpage and search for information about that person on sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Google News.

Site Specific Search Plugins:

Bug.gd Error Search – Bug.gd is a user driven website that contains a huge database of errors and solutions. This search plugin adds the error search to Firefox.

Coogle – Highlights the search phrase on websites that have been discovered by searching on Google.com.

Customize Google – Removes unwanted information like ads from Google search results and adds additional useful information like search options on other search engines to it.

Delicious Bookmarks – Keeps the Bookmarks of Delicious and Firefox in sync.

GooglePreview – Adds thumbnail previews of the websites in the search results.

Locator – Locates highlighted addresses on Google Maps.

Webmaster Specific Search Plugins:

SearchStatus – Displays a wealth of information about the current website in the statusbar. This includes the Google Pagerank and Alexarank. Provides Link Reports, whois search, keyword density and nofollow link options among others.

SEOQuake – A useful extensions for webmasters who want to optimize their pages for various search engines.