Update sites in your search engine

Adding and excluding pages or sites from your search engine.

Include sites in your search engine:

1. From the list of search engines, select the search engine you want to edit.
2. Under Overview, scroll down to Sites to search, click Add.
3. Enter the site/sites you want to add (you can enter a list of sites, one per line. Each line doesn’t need a delimiter at the end). See the table below "More on URL patterns" section if you aren't sure which one you want. Note: if the site you entered doesn't match a single page, our system will convert it into a correct url pattern format to match all URLs under the site.
4. Click Save.

Exclude sites from your search engine:

1. From the list of search engines, select the search engine you want to edit.
2. Under Overview, scroll down to Sites to exclude, click Add.
3. Enter the site/sites you want to exclude (you can enter a list of sites, one per line. Each line doesn’t need a delimiter at the end). See the table below "More on URL patterns" section if you aren't sure which one you want. Note: if the site you entered doesn't match a single page, our system will convert it into a correct url pattern format to match all URLs under the site.
4. Click Save.

More on URL patterns:

You can use URL patterns to specific part or all of a site at once, without having to list out all of the possible pages individually.

• Entire domain If you want to include everything on a domain in your search results, enter the domain as *.mysite.com/*. This will include any pages in the domain, for example blog.mysite.com and www.mysite.com. 
• Entire site If you want to include an entire site, specify the site followed by a wildcard pattern. For example, www.mysite.com/* will include all content on www.mysite.com, but not content on blog.mysite.com. 
• Parts of a site If you want to include specific parts of a site, use a URL pattern to specify which part of the site you want to include. For example, www.mysite.com/*dogs will match any URLs that start with www.mysite.com/ and contain the word "dogs," such as www.mysite.com/dogs.html and www.mysite.com/lots-of-dogs.html. On the other hand, www.mysite.com/dogs/* will only include pages that start with www.mysite.com/dogs/. It would not match www.mysite.com/dogs.html. 
• Single pages If you want to include specific pages, you can use the page's URL. For example, you can specify www.mysite.com/mypage.html to include the contents of mypage.html in your search results.

More detailed examples are included in this table:

Pattern	Description	Matches	Does not match
www.example.com/	Matches a single page	www.example.com/ example.com/	host.example.com www.example.com/stamps
www.example.com/*	Matches all URLs beginning with www.example.com or example.com	www.example.com www.example.com/stamps example.com/stamps	host.example.com/ host.example.com/stamps
www.example.com/*kites	Matches all URLs that begin with www.example.com/ or example.com/ and contain the word "kites"	www.example.com/kites.html www.example.com/kites/page2.html www.example.com/funwithkites.html	www.example.com www.example.com/stamps
www.example.com/product.asp*cat=Elec	Matches all URLs that begin with www.example.com/product.asp and contain the term 'cat=Elec'	www.example.com/product.asp?sku=20283&cat=Elec	www.example.com www.example.com/stamps
www.example.com/*kites*fly	Matches all URLs that begin with www.example.com/and contain the words "kites" and "fly"	ww.example.com/kites/howto/fly.html www.example.com/fly/howto/kites.html	www.example.com/kites/help.html www.example.com/help/fly.html
*.example.com/*	Matches all sub-domains under example.com	www.example.com/stamps host.parent.example.com/kites example.com/kites/fly.html	example.host.com

 

Notes:

• URL patterns are case-sensitive.
• URL patterns with public suffix: like *.com, *.co.uk, *.blogspot.com are not allowed.
• Maximum number of patterns per search engine is 5000. Tip: If you find your search engine outgrowing the large 5,000-site limit, consider consolidating individual URLs into URL patterns as explained above.
• Your URL patterns cannot be from more than 50 distinct domains.

Search the entire web and transition options:

As of January 20, 2026, Programmable Search Engine is transitioning to more focused solutions. This change impacts how you search the entire web:

• New Search Engines: All new engines must now be configured to use the "Sites to search" feature, which allows for highly optimized results across up to 50 designated domains.
• Existing Search Engines: If you have an existing engine already set to "Search the entire web," it will remain unaffected and can continue to use this option until January 1, 2027.

For more details see the Programmable Search Engine blog.

To manage "Search the entire web" for existing engines:

1. From the list of search engines, select the engine you want to edit.
2. Under Overview, scroll down to Search features.
3. Beside Augment results, toggle Search the entire web to On or Off.
   • Note: Once toggled to Off, this can not be toggled back to On.