Guide: Customize Google Chrome and Chromebook Searches in Three Easy Steps

In this article, we will show you how to customize the Google search bar on your Chromebook to have a more productive web browsing.

For example, if you want to search for a song on YouTube, you just have to type the name of the song in the search bar and a specific keyword – such as ‘yt’, and Google Chrome will search it for you exactly in YouTube. The same goes for searching an item to purchase. If you set up the search to look for products in online stores and select Amazon, for example, the next time you type ‘az iPhone X Case’, it will search for that item on Amazon.

Mac users already have the Alfred tool that will do anything you can program it to do and this is what we aim for Google Chrome searches, at least as much as we can.

In order to have these customizations, you will have to log into Chrome and you’re set to discover a new way of searching things on the internet. One issue is that these settings will not synchronize with your other devices, unfortunately.

Here is How to Set Google Chrome on PC or on Chromebooks

1. Find ‘Manage Search Engine’

Open google Chrome and click the three dots menu from the right top corner and go to ‘Settings’ -> ‘Search engine’ -> ‘Manage search engines’

There you will see a list with a lot of sites that you have visited. You can remove some of them or add others. This is an optional step, as Google will continue to add other sites later. (waltmassey.com)

2. Search for Something

Let’s say we’re on Amazon and you want to search something. Introduce in the Amazon searching bar the word ‘testing’ and then press enter. Look at the URL, it should say: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=testing

Edit the URL and replace the word ‘testing’ with %s – this will let Chrome know that any search term goes in that link. Copy it and do not press enter after you’ve changed the link.

3. Add Custom Search

Go back to Step 1. and click ‘add’. You will have to complete three fields:

‘Search Engine’: Here you can add the name of the URL that you will later add, so if you have an Amazon URL, you can write ‘amazon.com’, for example.

‘Keyword’: Here is the place where the magic happens. This is going to trigger your customized search. For Amazon, you can write: az – to be easy and fast when you want to start the searching.

‘URL with %s in place of query’: You will paste that URL from step 2.

Click save after you’re done.

Let’s try the Custom Search

Try to search something by using the keyword – az and then add the term that you are looking for: ‘az battery’. When you press space after entering the keyword, the search engine from Amazon will appear – you won’t see this on a Chromebook, but it will work nonetheless.

This feature is time-saving and it can also help you with a lot more than what we showed you.

More Customized Searches

If you place these next URLs and add their respective keywords, you can also tweak your searches.

For example, the next URL and keyword will help you find a search that looks for links from the month that has passed:

Keyword: gm

URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=qdr:m

This Google search will limit your search to last week:

Keyword: gw

URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=qdr:w

This Google search will show you a specific twitter profile:

Keyword: t

URL: http://twitter.com/search?q=%s

Try for yourself and see how effective your browsing will become!