10

So, I just bought a new laptop, installed Google Chrome, and discovered to my dismay that when I try to do what I normally do to perform a search, Google Chrome is acting wonky.

To normally search on every other computer I use, I start typing google in the adress bar, when I get to goo (usually), I'll hit TAB to enter "site search mode". Chrome is being a jerk and trying to take me to a page that is in my history.

I've tried clearing my history to see if that would fix it, but it still won't seem to work.

So, what can I do to make "search in site" work for Google (when it works by default for every other installation of Chrome)?

Hennes
  • 65,804
  • 7
  • 115
  • 169
Eric Ryan Harrison
  • 113

5 Answers5

14

Go to chrome://settings/ then Manage Search Engines and in order for feature to work it must be added to the list of search engines. Chrome typically adds it automatically once you visit the site though.

Guilherme Z. Santos
  • 103
imtheman
  • 4,783
5

In Chrome, visit chrome://settings/searchEngines
...You will see a list of all the tab-activated search engines, which Chrome has collected.

I will assume the search engine you want is NOT listed. If your engine IS listed [a problem I have NOT encountered], it may help to delete it, and re-add it using the following instructions:

Click [Add]

Search Engine: <Any friendly name you like>
Keyword      : <What you type in the URL bar to activate the search feature>
URL          : <The search URL with "%s" where your search words must appear>

Example ...I recently enabled the Youtube dark theme, which broke the Youtube "tab search" in Chrome:

Search Engine: Youtube
Keyword      : youtube
URL          : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s

Click [Add] (again)

If you do not know what the search URL should look like: Go to the website in question, perform a search, and look at what ends up in the URL bar ...Your text will be "URL Encoded", EG. spaces will be replaced by +'s (etc) - do not worry about that, the URL encoding will be done by Chrome's search engine for you :)

Example.
Go to Amazon and perform a search for "eneloop AA" which (for me) generates this URL:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=eneloop+AA&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
...You might notice that if you remove the "&ref..." from the end, the search still works
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=eneloop+AA
...So our Search engine URL could be:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%s

BlueChip
  • 76
3

Problem: I did what I always do, go to the Chrome web address bar at the top of the screen, typed "w" and "TAB"...but suddenly it did not allow me to search Wikipedia, which I do many times every day.

Solution: I hit the "3 dots" at the top right of the screen to get to "Settings", then clicked "Search Engine" on the left and scrolled down to "Inactive Shortcuts". Found "Wikipedia.org" and clicked "Activate" and it worked!

MontyCircus
  • 31
0
  • Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines
  • Site search add button
  • Enter this details in Edit search engine dialog box
  1. Search engine: YouTube
  2. Shortcut: youtube.com
  3. URL with %s in place of query: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&page={startPage?}&utm_source=opensearch
Sheikh Juned
  • 1
0

Had the same problem and this worked for me:

Go to chrome://settings/searchEngines

At the bottom there are probably entries under "Inactive shortcuts"

you can make them usable again by clicking the "Activate" button on the right

JC Rathnayake
  • 1