How to add Google News, Google Books, and Google Scholar search directly in your browser, to search those sites with fewer steps, and less chance of being distracted.

One of my hobbies is contributing to Wikipedia, and more so, creating new Wikipedia articles. Citations of reliable sources are key to both good contributions, and new articles, especially in making them stick (not get reverted/deleted).

I use Google News to search for citations, and depending on the topic, sometimes Google Books and Google Scholar.

Unfortunately, to search Google News, you have to first go to Google News (news.google .com - deliberately unlinked here), upon which you are immediately shown distracting (if not dire) news photos, headlines etc. which present a non-trivial challenge to staying focused.

If only there was a way to directly search Google News from your browser search box / address bar (like you can search Wikipedia from your browser).

Unfortunately, there is no site-specific search option for Google News (like there is for YouTube, e.g. see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_add-search-engines) that you can select an add to your browser in one click (enabled by OpenSearch support, link in footer).

This is another technology I use for category 2 (defending focus) that I mentioned in my previous post on focus.

Steps to add a Google News search option to Firefox:

1. open Firefox Preferences ("Firefox" menu, "Preferences" item)
2. select "🔍 Search" from the left column
3. scroll down to "Search Shortcuts"
4. click the "Add" button under the list of search engines which opens a dialog
5. enter "Google News" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
6. enter "https://news.google.com/search?q=%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
7. enter "gn" into the Keyword field (without quotes)

The dialog should look like this:


8. click (Add Engine)

Now you can go to your address bar, type in "gn " (without the quotes), your news search term or phrase, e.g. "Broken Arrow Skyrace", and press return to directly see search results.

Similarly for Google Books, follow the same steps except:
5. enter "Google Books" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
6. enter "https://books.google.com/books?q=%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
7. enter "gb" into the Keyword field (without quotes)

And similarly for Google Scholar:
5. enter "Google Scholar" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
6. enter "https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
7. enter "gs" into the Keyword field (without quotes)

Thanks to folks in the #indieweb informal chat who reminded me (when I complained about the distracting Google News home page) of this way to add new site-specific search capabilities to the browser even for sites (or subsites) without explicit OpenSearch support.

Looking forward to using these capabilities to more quickly find citations for updating and creating new Wikipedia articles.

Previously:
* https://tantek.com/2026/158/t2/three-insights-improving-focus
* https://tantek.com/2024/287/t2/setup-search-shortcuts-firefox

OpenSearch FYI:
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/XML/Guides/OpenSearch

#focus #Wikipedia #Firefox #GoogleNews #GoogleBooks #GoogleScholar #search #siteSearch #AddSearchEngine #searchEngine #searchEngines #OpenSearch #webSearch #SearchShortcuts #browserTip #FirefoxTip #searchTip