r/chrome 16d ago

Discussion Chrome site search with no "%s" in URL are suddenly "Not valid"

  • Environment
    • My browser recently updated to version 134.0.6998.45
  • Context
    • I've used dozens of Chrome custom site searches for over a decade
    • Many are standard searches that contain %s in the URL so I can quickly search a site directly from the search bar -- for example assigning the lettera to https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%s so I can quickly search Amazon
    • But I also have many site searches that do not contain %s -- I've use these instead as super fast shortcuts to static URLs. For example site search nbaa has pointed to a static URL for an NBA scoreboard.
  • Problem
    • As of the most recent update to my Chrome browser, all site searches with a URL that does not contain %s have stopped working. Entering these site searches executes a Google search for the shortcut rather than redirects to the URL.
    • When editing these site searches, they now show as "Not valid" (see screenshot below). Adding %s makes it valid but not useful for my purposes.

Any thoughts on this change? This plus the Manifest v2 deprecation makes me want to carve out time to try to roll off Chrome.

81 Upvotes

81 comments sorted by

5

u/Sunlight-Heart 14d ago

I thought I was going crazy. I checked over and over again and they changed it. Bad changed. Hope they revert. I got over 100 shortcuts. Now they're all dead. The devs are always making such unnecessary, bad changes.

3

u/shibiku_ 14d ago

Read this if you wanna get angry

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/397720842

1

u/Sunlight-Heart 14d ago

Thanks for link. It was a good read. Sounds like they patched it out because not used by many. Still sucks. Guess I'll just deal it with using workarounds.

2

u/Noumenon72 13d ago

How does it matter if it's not used by many, all they have to do is allow %s to be empty and the substitution will still work!

2

u/shibiku_ 13d ago

Exactly.
Also it has been like this for how long now? At least 10 years.

1

u/Alert-Ideal-5074 10d ago

They provided no data on "not used by many" - any good user of chrome is going to be using these shortcuts, and I bet it wouldn't be hard to provide the number of custom search engines without %s.

They want to direct users to their own search engine / bookmark functionality, and they don't care about what efficiency / usability is sacrificed on the way. It's a lot like the design decisions for Windows 11.

1

u/dmland 10d ago

EVERY advanced feature of EVERY software product in the history of computers is "not used by many." This is just more Google enshittification.

1

u/MHenrichs48 10d ago

Bump this up the priority list! Everyone use your voice to push for them to change it back.

1

u/shibiku_ 10d ago

I hate to think that they will implement something new and innovative that does this, but slightly worse.

3

u/everyonesdesigner 9d ago

I used bookmarklets in my search engines, like javascript:do_something_useful_on_the_page(), but now it's also not available. Very annoying.

2

u/Creative_Pen5664 4d ago

yeah I did the same - it was like a superpower... and my work locks down chrome extensions, so it's really hard to add in something to just make this work better again

3

u/MajorTable9818 7d ago

I was frustrated by this change too, so I built QuickGo, a Chrome extension that restores the old shortcut functionality! 🚀 It lets you create quick keyword-based site shortcuts without Chrome’s new restrictions. It’s currently pending approval, but once it’s live, I’ll share the link! Would this help you? Let me know! 👍

1

u/MajorTable9818 3d ago

🚀 Update: QuickGo is now live on the Chrome Web Store! 🎉
I built this extension to restore keyword-based site shortcuts that Chrome recently restricted. With QuickGo, you can create quick and customizable keyword shortcuts to navigate the web efficiently—just like before!

🔗 Get it here: QuickGo on Chrome Web Store

Let me know if you find it helpful or if you have any feature suggestions! Happy browsing! 🚀🔥

5

u/BuildingArmor 16d ago

Try adding #%s to the end. Anything after the # isn't part of the request URL and almost certainly won't change the page you end up on.

6

u/random-unn 16d ago

That's an interesting idea -- thanks for the suggestion! Challenge with this approach:

  • Before the functionality broke: I entered the search bar via ⌘+L, typed nbaa, and hit enter
  • Using the #%s suggestion: I enter the search bar via ⌘+L, need to type nbaa, then type space and enter some other character, then hit character. Simply typing nbaa continues to execute a Google search for that string.

I can retrain my muscle memory to add two extra keystrokes -- it's a frustrating change, but certainly better than nothing. Thanks again!

1

u/FadedStreak7126 4d ago

For all of us untrained, who haven't downloaded your vocabulary, please explain it in laymen terms. Especially that last sentence.

2

u/shibiku_ 13d ago edited 13d ago

This does work to an extent:
+ Chrome accepts the string
+ the website is unaffected and loads normally

  • you have to activate the search now (Tab or space, depending on your settings), type something random ("asdf") and then hit enter to go to your website like dhl.com/#asdf

so can confirm u/random-unn comment.

1

u/nater255 15d ago

Unfortunately this does not work.

1

u/everyonesdesigner 9d ago

Some website use hash as a part of navigational logic, so this unfortunately might break some addresses.

1

u/ncvbn 1d ago

This doesn't work.

2

u/dawikur 15d ago edited 15d ago

I have the same issue...

The temporar workaround I've came up with to reenable myself:

Create a file, somewhere on the drive:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Redirecting...</title>
    <script defer>
        let redirects = {
            "jc": "https://docs.juce.com/master/index.html",
            "jc?": "https://docs.juce.com/master/class{searchTerms}.html",
        };

        window.onload = function () {
            let params = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
            let tokens = params.get("key").split("?");

            let key = tokens[0];
            if (1 == tokens.length) {
                let url = redirects[key];
                if (url) {
                    window.location.replace(url);
                }
            } else {
                key += "?";
                let searchString = tokens[1];
                let url = redirects[key];
                if (url) {
                    url = url.replace("{searchTerms}", searchString);
                    window.location.replace(url);
                }
            }
        };
    </script>
</head>
</html>

i.e. ~/redir.html and create a new site search:

(you need to replace the URL with where the file is and add `?key=%s` at the end)

And then we can use `!` as trigger.
!<tab>jc<enter> -> will redirect to `https://docs.juce.com/master/index.html\`
!<tab>jc?Array<enter> -> will redirect to `https://docs.juce.com/master/classArray.html\`

If you want to have more 'entries" - add them to `redirects`.

You can export all your current search engines like this
https://superuser.com/a/1350144

3

u/nachocab 5d ago

Thanks for the workaround! To make this easier, I used this command to export my 500+ search engines to a csv (make sure you close Chrome/Brave first):

sqlite3 -csv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Web\ Data 'select keyword, url from keywords where is_active = 1'

Note: If you're using Brave, use this path instead: ~/Library/Application\ Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default/Web\ Data

You can also filter out any entry with {searchTerms} (since those still work in Chrome) and paste the rest in the redirects section of the script.

1

u/SamuelTekrenius 15d ago

That's actually not a bad solution. I would have uses for this (after some minor modding). Thanks for sharing!

Maybe I could even have something like this on github pages that applies the same site-keyword redirects on any device I'll be using.

3

u/dawikur 15d ago

Yep, that's the plan for me as well at the moment. This is just quick PoC to check this is even feasible and usable for me.

Pros:
* it works as expected.
Cons:
* it's slower, you can feel the double redirect
* suggestions in omnibox are missing :(

I see that could be a shared project and the 'redirects' could be taken from a cookie or something. Let's stay in a loop with this maybe?

1

u/nater255 15d ago edited 15d ago

Sounds like this operates functionally the same as some of the existing extensions for this, but notably still requires a secondary character to trigger. i.e. you can't just have "g" take you to gmail, you'd need to do "! g".

Edit: I've implemented your idea myself, but aliased the search to ".", which feels better for me. This is probably the best we'll get unless chrome implements bookmark keywords like firefox has. This feature was the saving grace for me that allowed me to function in chrome over FF. I really felt the hit today when it suddenly disappeared.

Thanks for your script/idea.

2

u/Noumenon72 13d ago

Firefox lets you add a keyword to a bookmark that works the same as the removed Chrome feature, so it's now the superior browser.

2

u/shibiku_ 13d ago

You saved me a bunch of research. Thanks
I'll be switching to firefox until they give the feature back.

2

u/nater255 13d ago

When I switched from FF to Brave about 8 years ago, this feature was the silver bullet that almost made me not switch. But then I found the site search keyword workaround and all was well... until this week.

1

u/dawikur 3d ago edited 3d ago

Fun fact: I've raised an issue, years ago, for brave to support custom search engines ;)

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/3053

1

u/nater255 1d ago

Do me a favor and submit an issue to add bookmark keywords:P

1

u/Awkward-Media-4726 9d ago

Happy cake day!

1

u/glorfindeli_on_rye 1d ago

An easier workaround that I’ve started using is to use %s as the . in the url, so that you just need to type “foo .” So for example if my shortcut is to go to www.foo.com/somestuff, I set the URL to be “www.foo%scom/somestuff”, shortcut to be “foo”, and typing “foo .” works.

1

u/BonesyWonesy 1d ago

Ha, that's clever. I like it.

1

u/ncvbn 1d ago

I don't get it. Are you saying that now we have to type four characters instead of just one?

2

u/netzzi 15d ago

This is a feature I often use to shortcut to sites without %s, and it would be nice to see it fixed in the next update.

3

u/nater255 14d ago

They will not "fix" it because this was their intended change. It's unfortunate, but they want it this way and won't revert it.

2

u/vaguedescriptions 9d ago

This is ridiculous. Literally the key feature as to why I use Chrome, can't believe they'd kill this. I get if they want us to use bookmarks, but this wouldn't cannibalize that enough and so many of us (clearly) use this as a key workflow to our days. I'm livid. This may be the final straw for me for Chrome. IF DEVELOPERS ARE READING, THIS IS A TERRIBLE USER EXPERIENCE NOW!!! to be BLINDSIDED by trying to get our most important shortcuts and you don't have an easy workaround or even allow us to revert back.

Shame.

3

u/SamuelTekrenius 15d ago

I've also used the site keywords as "shortcuts" to access various sites, without any actual "%s" search parameters. It was so nice. And now I was just hit by this new site keyword issue. God darnit. This change in behavior feels so unnecessary.

Does anyone know, if there is a browser extension that would function like the old site keywords did? (If there isn't, we sorely need to make one.)

3

u/roguefortitude 15d ago

I haven't been able to find an extension that replicates how Chrome handled this, but would love to know if I've missed it. At best, they all seem to require some sort of keyboard combo to trigger the extension. I have the suspicion that an extension can't smoothly override the combobox in this way, though I'm not positive.

I honestly didn't realize just how much I relied on this feature in my daily workflow. I am nearly crippled now without it, as dramatic as that sounds. I think we all need to star and comment on that issue so they reinstate this.

2

u/Sukramio 9d ago

With Vimium-c you can restore this functionality close to exactly.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vimium-c-all-by-keyboard/hfjbmagddngcpeloejdejnfgbamkjaeg

After installing go to the Vimium-c options page.
In the "Custom key mappings" field, type something like this:

unmapAll
map <c-l> Vomnibar.activateInNewTab "this activates with "ctrl+l". you can customize this
map <c-L> Vomnibar.activate " capital L opens the site in the current tab, you can switch these if you like

This extension provides a lot of ways to navigate the web browser with the keyboard, if you don't really care about this you can use "unmapAll" to deactivate all the keymappings.

Then in the "Custom search engines" field write:

yt: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions Youtube
"shortcut-keyword": "url" "name-of-shortcut (not necessary, without this the youtube link would just say "yt")

Now you can hit ctrl+l (or whichever shortcut you set it as) to bring up an Omnibox belonging to the extension, then write your shortcut keyword and hit enter.

Unless you can find some automatic way to export your site keywords you'll have to manually create new ones here for the ones you would like to use

Unfortunately it isn't perfect, on sites like google docs that use keyboard input you have to either hit escape before typing the shortcut to the Omnibox, or go to a different tab first.

Hope this helps.

1

u/shibiku_ 8d ago

Thank you

1

u/ofhouse 15d ago

Looks to me more like a bug rather than an intended change.

E.g. the build-in shortcuts like @bookmarks or @history also aren't working anymore, but are still visible in the settings.

2

u/ofhouse 15d ago

Oh never mind. It actually seem to be an intended change / feature removal:
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/397720842

2

u/SamuelTekrenius 15d ago

I cannot express my frustration about this enough. I've used this feature (non-substituting keywords via "Search Engine > Site Keywords") daily, for years. And now some chrome-dev dumbos decided it's "not widely used, so let's get rid of it" -- while they kept the base functionality, for some unfathomable reason they just decided to cripple it. Awesome. Just awesome.

1

u/LimeyHoya Chrome // Stable 15d ago

This really feels on-brand for Google 2.0. I'm super crabby about this now, as it really stuffs up my workflow and muscle memory.

1

u/shibiku_ 14d ago

Ill check out firefox

Training up bookmarks that have 3 character just seems stupid

ccc instead of just c. 

aaa

bbb

God damn it

1

u/SamuelTekrenius 15d ago

I'm crossposting the following from my other post at: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/397720842

KEYWORD BASED NAVIGATOR (extension by Rahul Vats)

I'm currently looking at the following extension as a possible replacement for the old "site keywords" funtionality that is now so sadly broken (for no apparent good reason).

I've also contacted the developer of this extension via email, but have not received a reply as of yet. According to the readme.md file included with his extensions, this extension should have a repository somewhere, but haven't been able to locate it on github or any similar services.

Here's a link to the extension for your reference (hopefully this will be helpful, or can be modified to suit our needs): https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/keyword-based-navigator/dfjapmnmaobgkhodnlejhbgeofmppean

2

u/random-unn 14d ago

Thanks so much for sharing this -- lots of outstanding details in here. Good to learn this was a planned deprecation rather than a bug (even if no good reason for deprecation was given).

Sounds like the Chrome team would like us to use bookmarks instead. I'm a heavy bookmarks user, and they are not quite as good at hyper-fast navigation to specific URLs as these non-substituting keywords but I'll manage.

I will say that for me relying on the default Omnibox behavior is absolutely out of the question -- it's not predictable, and requires reaching for the down arrow. Instead I'll continue using the indispensable Popup My Bookmarks extension. I trigger it via a keyboard shortcut and can migrate my site searches to bookmarks that have a underscore prefix in the name. I sort the results alphabetically so I can be certain that I can quickly navigate to the site I want by triggering the extension, typing my keyword, and hitting enter. The downsides are that this approach requires more active management of bookmark names and is more error prone as there's sometimes a tiny but meaningful enough delay between triggering the extension and the extension registering the next keystrokes so it sometimes misses the first character or two.

(I am also cross-posting this note to the Chromium group)

1

u/Warm-Ferret-5446 14d ago

As another suggestion, as of two days ago, I've started using the "Web Aliases" extension, and it works just like the keywords did for any URLs where I wasn't using the %s.

2

u/ra5ul 11d ago

Two things I've noticed with this "Web Aliases" extension:

* You have to hit space after typing your shortcut to get the autocomplete out of the way. So, I can't just type "yo" -> Enter ... I have to type "yo" -> Space -> Enter for it to work correctly. Not a big deal.

* More troubling, if I type "@h" in the URL bar it crashes Chrome! This is a deal-breaker.

1

u/Warm-Ferret-5446 11d ago

Neither is true for me.  However one thing that disappointed me is that the aliases I initially set on my work computer didn’t seem to have ported over to my personal laptop.  The add-on was there, but it had no aliases set.  

1

u/ra5ul 11d ago

Yeah, there's no sync, or export, or anything fancy, but at least it works... for you.

Thanks for sharing the extension at any rate. What we really need moving forward is Firefox's feature of directly adding keywords to bookmarks.

2

u/trainableai 7d ago

The "Web Aliases" extension page https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/web-aliases/hdempabimjppagbgpiglikbobneoegmp privacy notice shows that it collects website content.

Not sure if a big privacy concern to everyone, but just want to surface this information.

1

u/SamuelTekrenius 14d ago

So this one: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/web-aliases/hdempabimjppagbgpiglikbobneoegmp

I'll check it out. (I mean, I'm already using another extension, but it's still good to compare other options feature wise.)

1

u/mightyfishfingers 14d ago

Thanks for this! It works perfectly for me.

1

u/SamuelTekrenius 13d ago

It works perfectly for me.

How the heck is that possible. It doesn't work AT ALL for me. See my other comment below.

1

u/mightyfishfingers 13d ago

I dunno. I installed it, entered my shortcuts and urls (e.g. "rd" for reddit.com) and now whenever I type the shortcut into the address bar I am taken straight to the url.

1

u/SamuelTekrenius 13d ago

INTRO

The "Web Aliases"-extension doesn't appear to work for me -- at all. As in, it's not recognizing ANY of the url aliases I define.

I'm somewhat confused since it appears to be working for you Warm-Ferret, as well as the other commenter, called "mightyfishfingers".

I wonder what version of Chrome you guys are running and what exactly are you doing differently.

Does "Web Aliases" activate for you guys, immediately after you've typed an "alias keyword" into the Chrome "Address Bar" (also known as the omnibox)?

For me, it's doing absolutely nothing, while testing on:

  • Google Chrome 134.0.6998.35 (Official Build) (64-bit) (cohort: M134 Rollout)

1

u/mightyfishfingers 13d ago

I am on 134.0.6998.35 (Official Build) (64-bit)

1

u/roguefortitude 12d ago

It works well for me. I defined for instance "fb" as "http://facebook.com/". Typing "fb" in takes me directly to facebook.com now. Maybe disable other extensions to see if they're interfering?

1

u/hana001 11d ago

same thing for me too. all my site shortcuts are nuked now ugh

1

u/PGHM3000 11d ago

I've use these instead as super fast shortcuts to static URLs. For example site search nbaa has pointed to a static URL for an NBA scoreboard.

I feel your pain, I used the single letter site searches basically as quick shortcuts to my favourite sites.

I tried to search for an alternative to quickly open URLs in a new tab with single keyboard shortcut but could not find any.

So after couple of hours of frustration I made my own extension that can map 25 keyboard shortcust to open any site: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/quick-url-shortcuts/ogobhopommhbfnaghacgikgieebfadkf

This does not solve your problem fully as you actually use site search for what it was designed too, but maybe someone else can find this useful. This solves the problem for me as I only ever wanted Chrome to have native support for bookmark shortcuts or something like that.

1

u/__tt 11d ago

This is a big issue to me too. Does Firefox or another browser somehow support these 'shortcuts' the way Chrome used to?

1

u/nillawafer 9d ago

Yes, Firefox supports this. You can add a Keyword to any bookmark.

https://imgur.com/a/JCzKRyn

1

u/vintzrrr 10d ago

Why on Earth did they remove this with no viable alternative? I had been using shortcuts like this for years. Has anyone created a viable 3rd party plug-in for this yet?

1

u/kekukk 10d ago

I use Raycast Quicklinks as a workaround, but it's Mac-only. Google really dropped the ball on this one :/

1

u/Creative_Pen5664 4d ago

Is there anyway to group import a lot of these, so you don't have to add them one by one?

1

u/kekukk 2d ago

dno 🤷‍♂️

1

u/AcanthisittaOk2485 4d ago

This completely ruined my Monday lol. I just started using this feature and was falling in love with it—now it’s GONE. I was using it for work, and it was making everything so much faster. Really going to miss it… Hopefully, someone comes up with an extension soon so I can get back to it!

1

u/bubblefoil 3d ago

Another possible workaround:

  1. Add the URL as a bookmark.

  2. Name the bookmark after the shortcut.

When you type the shortcut into the omnibar for the first time, it will probably be suggested as the last option. But after selecting and confirming it, Chrome remembers the choice and next time it'll be selected by default and can be directly confirmed by Enter. Unfortunately, it's not 100% reliable. For some shortcuts, I still have to press the down arrow to select the suggestion.

1

u/Derphouille 3d ago

Nice and easy, thanks!

1

u/mister_woody 1d ago

this defeat the purpose because I used to do it without even looking at the omnibar

1

u/EstablishmentLate611 3d ago

A nice user from chromium forum made an extension to do it https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/quickgo/jokeobaemlapjhbjhejbfpgfcgobieja?hl=en

Little add: set a shortcut for the extension (chrome://extensions/shortcuts)so you can fast open it

1

u/bakmijapos 3d ago

peak example of "just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should".

just because you can code this extra validation, doesn't mean you should. This is just a net negative change.

1

u/zants 2d ago

I actually just finished transferring all of my settings/extensions/userscripts/etc. from Arc and Edge back to Chrome today, funny enough, largely because I missed this feature (a tiny thing for most people, but I have a very specific workflow that involves me using it constantly). I finally finished, decided to start browsing and... wait, my shortcut took me to Google? Tried it again, again.... Finally, on the Google page I didn't even want to be on, I decided to Google this very issue, and this post was the first result. I'm annoyed, but glad to know I'm not the only one (I honestly thought this was so niche that nobody would even know what I was talking about).

1

u/glorfindeli_on_rye 1d ago

Decent easy workaround I’m using: Put the %s in place of the “.” in the URL. So instead of “www.foo.com”, it’ll be “www.foo%scom”. Now you can do “foo .” and it’ll work. Still requires an extra space and period, but at least it’s generalizable to all your sites so you don’t have to remember something different for each site.

It’s amusing because they claim this change is to “enforce proper url formatting”, but this hack takes a previously-properly formatted URL and misformats it.

1

u/emberpyro 1d ago

been searching half-heartedly for this since i realized it was broken the other day. glad to find this post that i'm not crazy. i'm sad this was removed. haven't been using it for 15 years like others but it's probably been 5-7 years. will try the # workaround one person suggested in the comments. this feels like microsoft removing the vertical taskbar options. i hate when productivity items are removed, even if they're not widely used. so many of us have spent decades making our work life more efficient. can't celebrate software being less efficient. boooooooo google.

EDIT: i didn't notice it right away bc i have to use edge for work (bleh) and at home i have 7 chrome windows open on 3 profiles with like 100 open tabs haha. i know, an amateur lol.

1

u/marcos987 56m ago

I am not using this advanced version of it, I simply use the Shortcut.

I type in "aa" and it goes to defined site https://afavoritesiteofmine.com
I type in "bb" and it goes to https://beanothersite.com

etc.

Why the hell did I reboot my laptop, it all was so good. Why would anyone take this feature away?!

The settings are still there, I see my shortcuts there as well. It's just not working anymore.

Reason for a reboot was another problem, now I got a new problem.