Searching multiple specific domains with Google?
June 20, 2013 12:10 PM   Subscribe

I want to set up a Google search that searches a set of 15 domains. Google's "Advanced Search" doesn't do the trick. Is there a workaround?

In my law practice, I regularly search the webpages of the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas appellate courts, since these pages can sometimes provide more thorough [and cheaper] results that a Westlaw search.

The Google Custom Search URL for is formatted like this (with the search terms following the "q=", so, for example, "q=retaliation")

For the Texas Supreme Court:

http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/search.asp?q=

For the Courts of Appeals:

http://www.1stcoa.courts.state.tx.us/search.asp?q=
http://www.2ndcoa.courts.state.tx.us/search.asp?q=
http://www.3rdcoa.courts.state.tx.us/search.asp?q=

[and so on, until the www.14thcoa.courts.state.tx.us/search.asp?q=]

It's easy to search a particular court, but I'd like to be able to run a search on all 15 courts at once. I tried to use Google's Advanced Search to search multiple domains but it looks like that's not possible.

Is there a way to use a macro or some scripting to search all 15 without manually entering the query on each page/URL? I use Windows 7/am somewhat computer literate. Thanks!
posted by seventyfour to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
You can syntax it as: (term you are searching for) site:site1 OR site:site2...that works for me.
posted by xingcat at 12:20 PM on June 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you have an account, you can create a Custom Search that only includes specific domains. It's what Metafilter uses when you're not logged in.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:41 PM on June 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Just leave off the http://www.whatever, and use site: syntax — so plug this into the Google search bar:

site:courts.state.tx.us retaliation

(Search link)

That returns results from all those courts including Supreme and all the Appeals. If you want just "retaliation" and not "retaliatory", put "retaliation" in quotes.

This works in your particular instance. If the URL structures are not set up where you can just drop the first prefix like that, you'd have to use xingcat's method (with your search term at the end of the list of site:sitenames each separated by OR).
posted by beagle at 12:42 PM on June 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks, beagle, that works perfectly! (And I feel dumb for not understanding that I could do that, but s'ok). I'll check out custom search as well.

[I couldn't get xingcat's way to work, but I may be doing something wrong]. Appreciate your responses!
posted by seventyfour at 12:44 PM on June 20, 2013


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