The Public Interface

I recently learned by using the site search on deno.com that you can search specific sites on Google by including site:example.com in your search. For example, I can search for the term “html” on my blog with this search entry.

html site:int.pub

Their implementation is very simple and can be used on any indexed site. Here’s how you can implement a simple search feature on your site using an HTML form.

Create an HTML form that performs a get request to google.com/search. The <form> will have two <input> elements that have name=q attributes. The first will be input for the user’s search, and the second will be a hidden input with the value attribute set to "site:..." - the site you want to search. These will be used by the browser to create the URL string.

For example, when you search for “html”, the form would create a get request to:

https://www.google.com/search?q=html&q=site%3Aint.pub

You can try it out below:

If you have pages that are not indexed on Google, they will not appear in the search. Be sure to register your site on the Google Search Console to ensure it gets indexed properly. Pages that exist behind authentication will not be able to be searched using this method.

Thanks for reading!…