XenForo Using Chrome/FireFox custom search engine to search your forums

[El Bana]

I was recently introduced to a feature where you can simply type a keyword and search a site for a particular query using Google Chrome. Being a Firefox fanatic I wanted to use this feature with my browser but it proved a bit challenging to configure. However, after a bit of research and tweaks, I have finally gotten this work. And I wanted to share it with you. I have shared both the instructions for setting up custom search engines using Firefox and Google Chrome.

Firefox Instructions:

1. Go to your forum(s) search page, ending with /search.
2. Bookmark the page. Then go to your bookmark manager, edit the bookmark.
3. Under URL add https://yourcommunity.com/search/1/?q=%s (Replace yourcommunity.com with the path of your XenForo installation). E.g. Search results for query: %s
4. Enter a keyword (try to keep this small or something that you can easily remember and quickly write). For this example let's use 'xenforo'. Then hit Save.
5. In the URL Address bar, type your keyword from above then hit space and type in your search query. e.g. 'xenforo test'.

Google Chrome Instructions

1. Go to your Google Chrome settings. Then click Search Engine in the left sidebar.
2. Navigate to Manage Search Engines.
3. Under Other Search Engines click Add.
4. Enter the search engine name, e.g. 'XenForo Search'.
5. Enter a keyword (try to keep this small or something that you can easily remember and quickly write). For this example let's use 'xenforo'.
6. Now for URL with %s in place of query add https://yourcommunity.com/search/1/?q=%s (Replace yourcommunity.com with the path of your XenForo installation). E.g. Search results for query: %s
7. Hit Save.
8. In the URL Address bar, type your keyword from above then hit space and type in your search query. e.g. 'xenforo test'.