Allow site: syntax

Syntax: a Yes/No button

This controls whether to allow the site:host.domain query syntax in a search, to limit results to a single domain.

For example, to search for the words panda bear but only on sites in the example.com domain, enable the syntax and use the query:

panda bear site:example.com

This will return results from example.com as well as e.g. www.example.com, but not example.com.us.

No space may appear before or after the colon, nor in the domain. A site: clause may only be used in conjunction with other results-producing query parameters, e.g. keywords.

A site: clause will override any value in the From this domain box on the Advanced Search form, which uses a separate variable (sq). For profiles that are Meta Search back-ends, if the front-end Meta Search is using the site: syntax, all the back-ends should have Allow site: syntax set to Y so that the front-end's value can be passed in.

Note that a site: query requires post-processing, which may reduce query performance. For this reason, Allow Post-Processing (here) must be enabled as well for such queries.