Ask Dave Taylor
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • YouTube Videos
  • Top Categories
  • Subscribe via Email
  • Ask A Question
  • Meet Dave
  • Home
  • HTML & Web Page Design
  • How Can I Add a Britannica Online Search Box to my Site?

How Can I Add a Britannica Online Search Box to my Site?

October 22, 2020 / Dave Taylor / HTML & Web Page Design / No Comments

I’m building a resource page for home schooling and want to add search boxes right on the page for various sites. To start, can you help me add one for Britannica Online? It’s a great resource!

There are a lot of resources already online for home schooling, ranging from downloadables to entire curricula. Thematic word searches for the younger set, crossword puzzles, even interactive quizzes. It’s pretty amazing what’s there. But there’s always space for new quality content on the Internet, and a resource that helps people pick through the thousands of other sources is a good idea too. One obviously helpful facet of that is to not just point to good sources, but to integrate them into your page so that there’s one less click needed.

I’m also a fan of the Britannica.com site, the online version of their fabled encyclopædia, which, yes, we used to have on the shelf when I was growing up. Online makes finding things much easier, but it also makes accidental discovery much harder, the tradeoff of all digital versions of formerly print educational materials.

Be that as it may, let’s get into some coding, shall we? To do this, you’ll need to flip into “text” or “raw” or “html” mode in your page editor because you’ll be copying and pasting HTML and don’t want it to be formatted by your visual editor.

As with any Web site search reverse engineering task, the first step is to go to the site and do a search. In this case, we’ll head over to Britannica.com…

britannica.com search box

That’s quite a tagline, eh? 1768. The world has sure changed in the intervening 252 years.

Now to search for something. Since it’s Encyclopædia Britannica, let’s do an appropriately encyclopædic search: van gogh. Like most modern search engines, they have a suggestion engine that immediately offers up possible matches:

britannica.com - search suggestions for van gogh

Getting that to work on your site is pretty tough, so we’re going to eschew that functionality. Instead, just press Enter or Return and get to the search results page. In this instance, it’ll offer these matches:

britannica.com - search results for 'van gogh'

A bit redundant, but clearly this search matches the painter Vincent Van Gogh. What’s important, however, aren’t the results themselves, but the URL in the address bar of the search results page. In this instance the URL looks like this:

britannica.com/search?query=van+gogh

That’s nice and easy to unwrap, because we’re going to need to create an HTML form that points to the right place and offers up the user’s search query with the proper variable name too. This is what’s known as a method=GET form, and the elements are:

  • target=https://www.britannica.com/search
  • variable=query

Armed with that knowledge, a rudimentary form that lets you embed a Britannica search on your own Web page:

Search Britannica.com: 
<form method="get" action="https://www.britannica.com/search">
<input type="text" name="query" />
<input type="submit" name="Search!" />
</form>

Reasonably straightforward, I hope. You can see how we can just drop in the key elements (target, variable name) and have a crude, but functional search. Here, try it:


Search Britannica.com:


That’s the basics. You can embellish and add as you desire, including perhaps using the cool Britannica logo for visual identification, offering up a sentence or two describing the site and suggesting the types of searches that will have the best results. You can also link to search results too since you know the format of the search result URLs.

For example, to link to the search results for “cuban missile crisis”, you could simply use this URL:

https://www.britannica.com/search?query=cuban+missile+crisis

Thusly: Learn more about the Cuban Missile Crisis with just a click!

Hope that helps you build out the page you seek. Also note that I have a lot of reverse engineered search boxes explained on this site if you want to expand out to various other Web sites with your links. Start with Google Image Search, then explore Twitter people search, Reddit search, celebrity birthdays (who doesn’t want to know which celebrities share their birthday? 🙂 and, finally, a Bing search box too.

About the Author: Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the early days of the Internet. Author of over 20 technical books, he runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech help site. You can also find his gadget reviews on YouTube and chat with him on Twitter as @DaveTaylor.

Let’s Stay In Touch!

Never miss a single article, review or tutorial here on AskDaveTaylor, sign up for my fun weekly newsletter!
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please enter all required fields
Correct invalid entries
No spam, ever. Promise. Powered by FeedBlitz
Please choose a color:
Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!
britannica.com search box, build a form, html forms, reverse engineering, search britannica.com

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Recent Posts

  • How Can I Send My Friend a Voice Message via iMessage?
  • No, You Didn’t Just Win a Free Golf Cart from Lowe’s [Scam]
  • Handy Advanced Search Techniques for Microsoft Outlook.com
  • How Can I Rearrange Shortcuts on Android 13?
  • Comparison of the THREE Performance Monitors in Windows 11

On Our YouTube Channel

Mophie PowerStation XL 20W USB-C Charger -- REVIEW

FOSI Audio Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker B2 -- DEMO & REVIEW

Categories

  • AdSense, AdWords, and PPC Help (106)
  • Amazon, eBay, and Online Shopping Help (164)
  • Android Help (229)
  • Apple iPad Help (149)
  • Apple Watch Help (53)
  • Articles, Tutorials, and Reviews (346)
  • Auto Tech Help (17)
  • Business Advice (200)
  • ChromeOS Help (34)
  • Computer & Internet Basics (783)
  • d) None of the Above (166)
  • Facebook Help (384)
  • Google, Chrome & Gmail Help (188)
  • HTML & Web Page Design (247)
  • Instagram Help (49)
  • iPhone & iOS Help (626)
  • iPod & MP3 Player Help (173)
  • Kindle & Nook Help (99)
  • LinkedIn Help (88)
  • Linux Help (174)
  • Linux Shell Script Programming (90)
  • Mac & MacOS Help (914)
  • Most Popular (16)
  • Outlook & Office 365 Help (34)
  • PayPal Help (68)
  • Pinterest Help (54)
  • Reddit Help (19)
  • SEO & Marketing (82)
  • Spam, Scams & Security (97)
  • Trade Show News & Updates (23)
  • Twitter Help (222)
  • Video Game Tips (66)
  • Web Site Traffic Tips (62)
  • Windows PC Help (952)
  • Wordpress Help (206)
  • Writing and Publishing (72)
  • YouTube Help (47)
  • YouTube Video Reviews (159)
  • Zoom, Skype & Video Chat Help (62)

Archives

Social Connections:

Ask Dave Taylor


Follow Me on Pinterest
Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on LinkedIn
Follow me on Instagram


AskDaveTaylor on Facebook



microsoft insider mvp


This web site is for the purpose of disseminating information for educational purposes, free of charge, for the benefit of all visitors. We take great care to provide quality information. However, we do not guarantee, and accept no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained on this site or on any linked site. Further, please note that by submitting a question or comment you're agreeing to our terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site. Our lawyer says "Thanks for your cooperation."
© 2023 by Dave Taylor. "Ask Dave Taylor®" is a registered trademark of Intuitive Systems, LLC.
Privacy Policy - Terms and Conditions - Accessibility Policy