# Help me break a stupid internet search habit! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 4, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288 "2010-05-04T15:21:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/21 "2010-05-04T20:56:48Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Maybe make your Google search box a little bit bigger - I never used mine until I embiggened it so I could type a proper search in it (and see the typing). How you embiggenate, ma’am? ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/22 "2010-05-05T20:00:35Z")
> [@Panurge](#): > > Are you using Firefox? If you are, the open google, right click in the search box and choose “add a keyword for this search”. Choose a simple one - like “gg”, for example. Next time you want to do a google search press ctrl+l to go to the address bar, type “gg” and whatever you want to search for. This works for other sites as well. I use “gi” for google images, “wp” for wikipedia, “im” for imdb, “you” for youtube, etc. > > Try it out - you’ll never go back. And soon you will be in the :smack: 😃 position whenever you look over another searcher’s shoulder.. Uhhh, doesn’t the toolbar have dropdowns for Wikipedia, Google, IMdB, etc. searches? Mine does, it might be one of those Firefox addons all the kids are talking about and I added it so long ago I’ve forgotten I’ve added it, but it’s a real help to have all those sites ready to search at a moments notice. I’ve noticed I’ve added some other, more obsucre, sites there too, like [nationmaster.com](http://nationmaster.com) and [memoryalpha.com](http://memoryalpha.com) (a Star Trek wiki - hey, I’m a geek, waddya want?) ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/23 "2010-05-05T20:22:35Z")
> [@dhkendall](#): > > Uhhh, doesn’t the toolbar have dropdowns for Wikipedia, Google, IMdB, etc. searches? Mine does, it might be one of those Firefox addons all the kids are talking about and I added it so long ago I’ve forgotten I’ve added it, but it’s a real help to have all those sites ready to search at a moments notice. I’ve noticed I’ve added some other, more obsucre, sites there too, like [nationmaster.com](http://nationmaster.com) and [memoryalpha.com](http://memoryalpha.com) (a Star Trek wiki - hey, I’m a geek, waddya want?) It does have a dropdown menu. But which option is faster/easier: Clicking in the search field, activate drop down, choose, type _or_ ctrl-l, type? Also: ctrl-t + type to do your search in a new tab. I use it for pretty much every type of search I do - even obscure sites like Sanskrit dictionaries and such. Anyway - I’m not saying that this is the best way to do this, but it is fast and I like it. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/24 "2010-05-05T23:12:00Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > How you embiggenate, ma’am? I’ve got the Yahoo toolbar on this machine, but I can click around the left end of the top-right-corner search box (the one in the Navigation toolbar) and drag that end further left, shrinking the URL box in the process. I can also reverse the process and enlarge the URL box, though I can’t think of a reason to. I’ll be trying this on Google tomorrow morning. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/25 "2010-05-05T23:19:36Z")
I include “http://” when I type it in. I’m only 20, too! It seems like everyone else who does this is old. I don’t particularly care, though. I have other personality quirks that are much more unfortunate than this one so there’s no point worrying about it. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/26 "2010-05-06T01:23:33Z")
> [@yuliya](#): > > EVERYONE should switch to Chrome ASAP. I find Chrome awkward to use. Tips? ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/27 "2010-05-06T01:35:07Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Also, in Firefox, Ctrl + K puts your cursor in the Google search box. !!! Sweet. I did not know that. I apparently don’t know as much about Firefox as I thought I did. I recently learned here another Firefox google trick: if you’re reading something and highlight it and right click it, there is a context menu for “Search google for \_\_\_\_” ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/28 "2010-05-06T01:35:57Z")
Two words: “Alt” and “Home” ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/29 "2010-05-06T02:22:15Z")
> [@Panurge](#): > > Are you using Firefox? If you are, the open google, right click in the search box and choose “add a keyword for this search”. Choose a simple one - like “gg”, for example. Next time you want to do a google search press ctrl+l to go to the address bar, type “gg” and whatever you want to search for. This works for other sites as well. I use “gi” for google images, “wp” for wikipedia, “ttim” for imdb, “you” for youtube, etc. > > Try it out - you’ll never go back. And soon you will be in the :smack: 😃 position whenever you look over another searcher’s shoulder.. I’m not understanding this. When I right-click my Google toolbar, I get the usual cut/copy/paste…no ‘add a keyword’. Could you (or someone) explain this in another way? ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/30 "2010-05-06T02:52:57Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I’m not understanding this. When I right-click my Google toolbar, I get the usual cut/copy/paste…no ‘add a keyword’. > > Could you (or someone) explain this in another way? You have to go to the actual website, not the toolbar. But once you are there you can right click and add a keyword. What you are doing is making a bookmark to the search bar, which is why you need to go to the actual google site. It’s neat. ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/31 "2010-05-06T08:07:49Z")
What **NAF1138** said. And just out of curiosity: Does anyone know if IE has this functionality, i.e. making a bookmark for a search field as described above? (Linux user - no IE). ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/32 "2010-05-06T10:58:53Z")
I use the SpeedDial app with Firefox. For me, Google is Ctrl-1. ---
**Author:** ![may\_be\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c5a1d2/32.png) [@may\_be\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/may_be_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2010, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/33 "2010-05-06T12:05:22Z")
Wow. Really? Euthanasia was invented for people like you. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/34 "2010-05-07T19:05:16Z")
> [@](#): > > You have to go to the actual website, not the toolbar. But once you are there you can right click and add a keyword. What you are doing is making a bookmark to the search bar, which is why you need to go to the actual google site. Alright, I know I’m dense, but I don’t get it. When I right-click to add a keyword, I get three fields I have to fill in: name, folder, keyword. So…what goes in each field? And what am I accomplishing? If someone could give me a step-by-step, I’d appreciate it. Thanks, MMM ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/35 "2010-05-07T19:17:47Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Alright, I know I’m dense, but I don’t get it. When I right-click to add a keyword, I get three fields I have to fill in: name, folder, keyword. So…what goes in each field? And what am I accomplishing? > > If someone could give me a step-by-step, I’d appreciate it. > > Thanks, > > MMM Ok, so you got to the add a keyword bit right? The dialogue box pops up and it has three fields. Name, File, and Keyword. Remember, what you are literally doing is creating a bookmark to that search field and a keyword shortcut that you can type into the URL bar to tell firefox how to populate that search field when you hit enter. So the dialogue box pox up and you can leave name and folder just as they are. Go back and rename the bookmark and file it away later. Down in the add a keyword field type in a quick easy to remember code that you want to type into the URL bar when you want to run a search. For google I used GG. For IMDB I used IMDB. For Wiki I used WI. I like to stick to two characters for the most part, but you could have it be only a single character if you want. Hit enter. Now go to the URL bar and type in that code. Let’s take Wiki as an example. I go to the URL bar and type WI and hit enter it takes me to [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=&go=Go)page If I type wi okapi and hit enter I get [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi)page. This essentially turns my URL bar into the same thing as the search bar that I have to the right of my URL bar, but I can get to it faster because I don’t have to select from the dropdown which search engine I want to use. You can use these sorts of keywords for any bookmark. I already was for places that I visit regularly like the SDMB. But I never knew you could run searches using them too. That’s what makes it neat. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/36 "2010-05-07T21:23:36Z")
> [@ryobserver](#): > > I’ve got the Yahoo toolbar on this machine, but I can click around the left end of the top-right-corner search box (the one in the Navigation toolbar) and drag that end further left, shrinking the URL box in the process. I can also reverse the process and enlarge the URL box, though I can’t think of a reason to. I’ll be trying this on Google tomorrow morning. Yeah, that’s it. I just moused around until the dual direction arrows came up, then it’s just pull to the desired length. And that is SO a “That’s what she said!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/37 "2010-05-07T22:01:44Z")
Actually, the one that makes me bonkers is that probably 90% of the employees in my office first type: [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) into their address bar, then type our company name in the search bar, then click on the link at the top of the search ranking, just so they can refer to an on-line list we have. Our company name has 7 letters. They don’t even need the “www”, just writing “[Company.com](http://Company.com)” will bring them to site. It completely skews our web stats that we use for tracking marketing stuff. We’ve set it up so our stats will disregard queries coming from our own IP. But I’m one of the only people who makes direct queries from our IP, everyone else goes through a pointless Google search, which makes it look like Google is really driving traffic to our site. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/38 "2010-05-07T22:23:31Z")
Wow, people really do that? That’s nuts! The internet has been around way too long for people to still surf that way. ---
**Author:** ![Pseudocode](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/59ef9b/32.png) [@Pseudocode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pseudocode)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/39 "2010-05-07T22:53:41Z")
> [@Panurge](#): > > Also: ctrl-t + type to do your search in a new tab. In Firefox, you can change the default search box behavior to open in a new tab. Type about:config in the address bar, then change the attribute **browser.search.openintab** to true. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-break-a-stupid-internet-search-habit/538288/40 "2010-05-07T23:14:20Z")
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