---
title: "Let your bot search websites live"
description: "Let your bot search chosen websites live and read the pages and PDFs it finds, for sites too large or too fast-changing to index."
canonical_url: "https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/web-search"
last_updated: "2026-11-09"
---

# Let your bot search websites live

**Available on:** Basic, Standard, Pro, Enterprise plans.

Add the **Web search** power-up so your bot searches the websites you choose at the moment a visitor asks, then reads the pages and PDFs it finds before it answers.

**Who can do this:** [team owners and admins](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/teams#what-each-role-can-do).

## When to use it instead of indexing a site

[Adding a website to your knowledge](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/website) works best for a site of a few hundred pages that changes now and then. Use Web search when:

- **The site is very large**, such as a news archive or a publications library with thousands of items.
- **It changes every day**, so an indexed copy is always behind. Web search sees what is published today.
- **The answers are in PDFs**, such as reports, speeches and price lists. The bot can read a PDF it finds and answer from it.
- **Visitors ask for the latest**, such as "the most recent press release". Results carry their publish date, so the bot can find the newest.

For a small site you control, indexing is still faster and doesn't use message tokens on every search.

### Moving from Google Search

The Google Search power-up stops working on 1 January 2027. Web search replaces it: your Google Search **Site** goes into **Allowed websites**. See [Move from Google Search to Web search](https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/google-search#move-from-google-search-to-web-search).

## Steps

1. Open your bot, go to the **Power-ups** tab and click **New power-up**.
2. Choose **Web search** and click **Create power-up**.
3. Edit the **Power-up name** and **Description**. Say when the bot should search, for example "Use for news, reports and anything published on example.com."
4. Under **What to search**, add each website to **Allowed websites**, for example `example.com`, and click **Add**. Subdomains are included, so `example.com` also covers `news.example.com`. Leave it empty to search the whole web.
5. Leave **Let the bot read pages and PDFs** on, unless you only want short search excerpts.
6. Under **Results**, optionally change:
   - **Results per search**: 3, 5, 8 (default) or 10.
   - **Search depth**: **Fast** (default) or **Thorough**. Thorough finds more on hard questions, but each search uses about five times as many message tokens.
7. Optionally open **Advanced** to add **Excluded websites**, which are never searched or read, even inside an allowed website.
8. Click **Save**.

The settings screen also shows roughly how many message tokens a search and a page read use. See [How usage is charged](https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/web-search#how-usage-is-charged).

## How the bot uses it

The power-up gives your bot two tools:

- **Search** returns up to 10 pages, each with its link, title, publish date and the passages that match the question.
- **Read** opens up to 3 pages or PDFs at a time and returns the parts relevant to the question. It is only there when **Let the bot read pages and PDFs** is on.

The bot only sees and reads pages on your **Allowed websites**. Chat Thing checks every result and every page it asks to read, so the bot stays inside those websites even if it guesses a link. Answers cite the pages they used as links in the reply.

## How usage is charged

Each search and each page read counts towards your team's [message tokens](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/message-tokens), the same allowance your bot's replies use. It also counts towards a bot's daily token limit and shows in the conversation's usage.

| Action | Message tokens |
| --- | --- |
| Fast search | about 3,000 |
| Thorough search | about 15,000 |
| Each page or PDF read | about 3,000 |

A reply that runs two searches and reads three pages uses about 15,000 tokens for search, on top of the tokens for the reply itself. Pages that fail to load aren't charged.

If your team has used its message allowance and the bot is answering with your own AI provider key, Web search is unavailable until the allowance resets or you [add more message tokens](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/add-ons). Your own key doesn't pay for search.

## Limits

- Up to 50 allowed websites and 50 excluded websites per power-up.
- Up to 10 results per search and 3 pages per read.
- Reading returns the passages of a page relevant to the question, up to about 6,000 characters per page, not the whole document.
- Pages that need a login, or that block automated visitors, can't be read.
- Results aren't shown as source cards under the answer. The bot links to the pages it used instead.

## Check it works

1. Chat with your bot while signed in and ask about something recent on one of your allowed websites, for example "What did the latest report say about prices?"
2. Open **View details** on the power-up calls to see what the bot searched for, which pages it read and what came back.

## Troubleshooting

### The bot answers from the excerpts without reading the page

Make sure **Let the bot read pages and PDFs** is on, and say in the **Description** when to read, for example "Read the report before answering about what it says."

### The bot can't find something I know is on the site

Check the website is in **Allowed websites** exactly as it appears in the address bar, without the path. Then try **Thorough** search depth, which looks harder on difficult questions.

### The bot says live search is unavailable

Your team has used its message allowance and the bot is running on your own key. Search starts working again when the allowance resets or when you add message tokens.

## Related

- [Add your website](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/website): Add website pages and linked PDFs to your bot by URL, sitemap or crawl, choose which part of each page is read, and access password-protected sites.
- [Let your bot read a web page](https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/browse-webpage): Let your bot fetch a web page during a chat and pull out what it needs. Use any URL or one fixed page, with CSS selectors, a custom prompt and basic auth.
- [Message tokens and what happens when you run out](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/message-tokens): What message tokens are, how each message is counted, how model multipliers work, when tokens reset, and what happens when your team runs out.