The Power of Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets are browser bookmarks containing tiny snippets of JavaScript code that allow for more powerful features than a standard bookmark. In our case, we’ll be using a JavaScript bookmarklet in Firefox to do a site search using the address of the site you’re currently browsing.

For this task, we’ll need JavaScript to grab the current site address dynamically and insert it into the search string. If that sounds complex, don’t get overwhelmed. It’s really as easy as cut and paste.

How to Add a Custom Site Search Bookmarklet to Firefox

First, open a Firefox window and bookmark any site by pressing Ctrl+D (on Windows and Linux) or Command+D (on Mac). Name the bookmark something distinctive, like “Site Search Shortcut,” so that you can easily find it in your bookmarks library. Then click “Done.”

Next, open the Bookmarks sidebar by pressing Ctrl+B (on Windows and Linux) or Command+B (on a Mac). Locate the bookmark that you just created and then right-click it in the sidebar list and select “Properties.”

A Properties window for the bookmark will appear. In the “Location:” field, paste one of the following options. To search the current site using Google, paste this:

javascript:location='http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:'%20+%20escape(location.hostname)%20+%20'%20%S'%20;%20void%200 
To search the current site using Bing, paste this:

javascript:location='https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3A'%20+%20escape(location.hostname)%20+%20'%20%S'%20;%20void%200
To search the current site using DuckDuckGo, paste this: javascript:location='https://www.duckduckgo.com/?q=%S+site%3A'%20+%20escape(location.hostname)%20+%20'%20'%20;%20void%200 After that, click the “Keyword” field and type “cs” (for “current site”) or another mnemonic shortcut keyword you’d like to type to trigger the site search.

When you’re done, click “Save,” and the bookmark properties window will close.

Next, navigate to any website that you’d like to search (Let’s say How-To Geek, for example.). When you’re there, click the address bar in any Firefox window and type “cs atari” and hit Enter.

Instantly, you’ll see search results for “atari” among pages on the howtogeek.com website using the search engine you chose in the bookmark above.

You can apply this search shortcut to any site. When browsing, just type “cs [search query]” into the address bar (where [search query] is what you want to search for), hit Enter, and you’ll have instant results. Very handy and powerful. Use it for Amazon, Wikipedia, and any other site on the net.