Chrome Site Search Shortcuts: Search Any Site From the Address Bar

A site search shortcut lets you search one website straight from Chrome’s address bar, without changing your default search engine. Type the shortcut, press Space or Tab, then type what you are looking for and press Enter. Chrome comes with three built in:

• @tabs searches the tabs you have open.
• @bookmarks searches your bookmarks.
• @history searches pages you have visited.

Google documents these in its help for managing tabs, finding bookmarks and searching your history. You can add a shortcut for any site with a search box, as shown below. The steps are for Chrome on a computer.

Add your own site search shortcut

1. Paste chrome://settings/searchEngines into the address bar, or select More (the three dots at the top right) > Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search.
2. Next to Site search, select Add.
3. Fill in the three fields (explained below) and select Add.

The fields, as Google’s help page Set default search engine and site search shortcuts describes them:

• Search engine: a name for the site, so you can recognize it in the list.
• Shortcut: the short word you will type in the address bar, for example wiki or yt.
• URL with %s in place of query: the address of the site’s search results page, with %s where your search words go.

Find the URL to use

1. Go to the site you want to add and search for any word.
2. Copy the address of the results page. It is different from the site’s home address.
3. Paste it into the URL field and replace your search word with %s.

Google’s own example: a search for “soccer” gives http://www.google.com/search?q=soccer, so the URL to enter is http://www.google.com/search?q=%s.

Shortcuts Chrome adds for you

The Inactive shortcuts section on the same settings page lists suggested sites. Some sites only appear there after you have searched on them. Select Activate to turn one into a working shortcut.

Edit, turn off or delete a shortcut

• Edit: select Edit to the right of the shortcut to change its name, shortcut or URL.
• Deactivate: select More > Deactivate. The shortcut moves to Inactive shortcuts, where you can turn it back on.
• Delete: select More > Delete.
• Make default: select More > Make default to use the site for every address bar search.

The built-in shortcuts for tabs, bookmarks and history can be edited or turned off but not deleted. Google also notes that Gemini can’t be edited, deleted or set as your default search engine.

Use Tab only, or Space or Tab

If you see a Keyboard shortcut option on the same settings page, it sets which key starts a site search after you type a shortcut: Space or Tab, or Tab only. Choose Tab only if a shortcut keeps starting when you meant to type an ordinary search.

Shortcuts on work or school computers

Administrators can add site search shortcuts for everyone in their organization, as described in the Site search settings policy. Those shortcuts can also be typed with an @ in front, such as @work.

Want to change the search engine Chrome uses for everything instead? See how to change the default search engine in Chrome.