25 Useful Firefox Smart Keywords

Two weeks ago I told you how to streamline searching and browsing in Firefox with Smart Keywords. Smart Keywords allow you to jump straight to a web site or, more interestingly, perform a search at any of your favorite sites, just by typing a few characters into the address bar. In that article I showed you how to create Smart Keywords to search Google Maps; in this article I'll show you 25 of my favorite and most useful Smart Keywords.

How to use this list

Below you'll find the list of 25 Smart Keywords; each has a description, a URL (with that magic %s placeholder I told you about in the previous article), the keyword itself, and an example of its usage. There are two ways you can use the list:

1. You can download them all at once and import them into Firefox. This is the method I recommend and requires the least effort, and after you import them you can customize them to your liking or delete the ones you don't want. Here's how to do it:

   1. Right-click on this link and choose "Save Link As..." and save the file to your hard drive, on your Desktop or in My Documents, for example.

   2. Open Firefox's Bookmarks Manager by selecting Organize Bookmarks... from the Bookmarks menu.

   3. Go to File > Import..., choose the From File option, and click Next. In the file dialog that appears, find the file that you just downloaded (smartkeywords.html), and click on the Open button.

   That's it! They'll all be imported at once into their own folder in your Bookmarks. You can browse them, change their keywords, or remove ones you don't want by using the Bookmarks Manager.

2. Or you can pick and choose the ones you want from the list below, which I don't recommend unless you want just a few of them. This is a little trickier because using this method they won't have keywords or descriptions, so you'll have to add those manually. Here's how to do it:

   1. Right-click on the URL for the Smart Keyword you want and choose Bookmark This Link...

   2. In the dialog that appears, give it a meaningful name, choose or create a folder to put it in, and click OK.

   3. Now give it a keyword by finding it in the Bookmarks menu or Bookmarks Manager, right-clicking on it and choosing Properties, entering a keyword (I've written my recommended keywords below), and clicking on OK.

   You'll have to repeat this process for each of the Smart Keywords you want.

The list itself is below. If you followed method A above, each Smart Keyword was imported with a description that you can view in the Bookmarks Manager. Alternatively, you can bookmark this page and use it as your reference.

Shopping

1. Search Amazon.com
   Keyword: amazon

   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/?index=blended&keyword=%s
   Example: amazon confederacy of dunces

2. Search eBay auctions
   Keyword: ebay
   

   http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=%s
   Example: ebay used iphone

3. Compare prices at PriceGrabber
   Keyword: pg
   

   http://www.pricegrabber.com/search.php?form_keyword=%s
   Example: pg nikon digital camera

Google tools

4. Google web search
   Keyword: g
   

   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s
   Example: g video editing tutorial

5. Google Images search
   Keyword: images
   

   http://images.google.com/images?q=%s
   Example: images Sergey Brin

6. Google Maps local search
   Keyword: map
   

   http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%s
   Example: map restaurants near Iowa City, IA

7. Google News search
   Keyword: news
   

   http://news.google.com/news?q=%s
   Example: news sub-prime mortgages

8. Search your Gmail messages
   Keyword: gmail
   

   https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#search/%s
   Example: gmail baby pictures
   Note: Requires a free Gmail account

9. Compose an email message with Gmail
   Keyword: email
   

   https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&ui=1&tf=0&to=%s
   Example: email jordan@example.com
   Note: Requires a free Gmail account

10. Search your Google Reader feeds
    Keyword: reader
    

    http://www.google.com/reader/view/#search/%s/
    Example: reader amazon kindle
    Note: Requires a free Google Reader account

Video & entertainment

11. Search YouTube videos
    Keyword: youtube
    

    http://youtube.com/results?search_query=%s
    Example: youtube leave britney alone

12. Search for video and TV shows on Hulu
    Keyword: hulu
    

    http://www.hulu.com/videos/search?query=%s
    Example: hulu firefly

13. Search Metacritic reviews
    Keyword: mc
    

    http://www.metacritic.com/search/process?ts=%s
    Example: mc toy story 2

14. Search TV shows at TV.com
    Keyword: tv
    

    http://www.tv.com/search.php?qs=%s&type=11&stype=all
    Example: tv the office

15. Search Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
    Keyword: imdb
    

    http://us.imdb.com/find?q=%s
    Example: imdb apocalypse now

Reference

16. Search for synonyms at Thesaurus.com
    Keyword: thes
    

    http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=%s
    Example: thes enthusiastic

17. Get the weather forecast from the Weather Channel
    Keyword: weather
    

    http://www.weather.com/search/enhanced?where=%s
    Example: weather indianapolis, in

18. Search encyclopedia entries at Wikipedia
    Keyword: wp
    

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s
    Example: wp battle of trafalgar

19. Search for information on Answers.com
    Keyword: answers
    

    http://www.answers.com/%s
    Example: answers home equity loan

20. Get human-powered search results at Mahalo
    Keyword: mahalo
    

    http://www.mahalo.com/Special:Search?search=%s
    Example: mahalo chocolate rain

Miscellaneous

21. Search Facebook friends, groups, pages, etc.
    Keyword: fb
    

    http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=%s
    Example: fb dawn smith
    Note: Requires a free Facebook account

22. Yahoo! web search
    Keyword: y
    

    http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%s
    Example: y backpacking tips

23. Technorati blog search
    Keyword: blogs
    

    http://technorati.com/search/%s
    Example: blogs obama speech

24. Instantly bookmark current page on del.icio.us
    Keyword: d
    

    javascript:void(%20delicious%20=%20open('https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/add?description='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'&tags=%s'+'&url='+window.location.href,'delicious','toolbar=no,width=500,height=150'),%20setTimeout('delicious.close()',5000))
    Example: d firefox tips smartkeywords
    Note: Requires a free del.icio.us account. This Smart Keyword was originally published at Lifehacker.

25. Search your del.icio.us bookmarks by tag
    Keyword: del
    

    http://del.icio.us/YOUR_DELICIOUS_USERNAME/%s
    Example: del firefox+tips
    Note: Requires a free del.icio.us account. For this Smart Keyword you'll have to replace YOUR_DELICIOUS_USERNAME with your own del.icio.us username.

That's all 25, but I'm sure seasoned Firefox users among my readers have their own to share. If you do, please post them in the comments below!