Make Google Work from the URL Bar Like it Used To

The quotes, plusses and minuses work without going to "Advanced Search"

If you’re like me, you remember back in the day when you could actually type quotes around what you want google to search for. Putting something in quotations means “must include” and prepending a “-” meant “must exclude”. Nowadays, this no longer works. Now, you can of course go to the advanced search page, but most of us don’t do that. We type things into the browser’s URL bar and it dispatches to our favorite search provider… which in my case is Google. I figured there must be a nice way to bypass the middleman, and… there is! When you use the Advanced Search it actually just constructs a query, and we can do it ourselves with a small proxy script.

This example is using Ruby, but you could rig up something just as easily in python or node. I’m just most familiar with ruby so this was the fastest route to victory.

The query syntax we are targeting:

1. q: This is the query string. E.g., q=python

2. as_q: This is where you put words that must appear in the results. Equivalent to the old + syntax. E.g., as_q=programming

3. as_epq: For exact phrases. E.g., as_epq="programming language"

4. as_oq: At least one of the words must appear. E.g., as_oq=("ruby" "python")

5. as_eq: Words to exclude. Equivalent to the old - syntax. E.g., as_eq=snake

6. lr: Language restrict, like lr=lang_en

7. as_filetype: To search for a specific file type. E.g., as_filetype=pdf

The Goal

When I type something in the URL bar, have it parse the query in the ‘old google syntax’ into a new query using those parameters.

For this simple example we’ll only implement the quotes and the ‘-’ minus operator, but you get the idea.

Steps

• Create a script, something like `search_proxy.rb`

  require 'webrick'
  require 'uri'
  require 'cgi'
  
  server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new(Port: 8089)
  
  server.mount_proc '/' do |req, res|
    query_string = URI.parse(req.request_line.split[1]).query
    query_params = CGI.parse(query_string)
    raw_search = query_params["search"]&.first || ""
  
    q_param = []
    epq_param = []
    eq_param = []
  
    in_quotes = false
    current_phrase = ""
  
    raw_search.split.each do |word|
      if word.start_with?('"') && word.end_with?('"')
        epq_param << word.gsub(/"/, '')
      elsif word.start_with?('"')
        in_quotes = true
        current_phrase = word.gsub(/"/, '')
      elsif word.end_with?('"')
        in_quotes = false
        current_phrase += " #{word.gsub(/"/, '')}"
        epq_param << current_phrase
        current_phrase = ""
      elsif in_quotes
        current_phrase += " #{word}"
      elsif word.start_with?('-')
        eq_param << word[1..-1]
      else
        q_param << word
      end
    end
  
    google_url = "https://www.google.com/search?"
    google_url += "q=#{q_param.join('+')}" unless q_param.empty?
    google_url += "&as_epq=#{URI.escape(epq_param.join(' '))}" unless epq_param.empty?
    google_url += "&as_eq=#{eq_param.join('+')}" unless eq_param.empty?
    res.set_redirect WEBrick::HTTPStatus::TemporaryRedirect, google_url
  end
  
  trap('INT') { server.shutdown }
  server.start

• Add a new search provider to your browser

  

• Start your script running

  ruby search_proxy.rb

• Set your new search provider as the default

• Profit!

Enjoy! Drop me a comment if you like this.