Web search settings
Genie can search the public web when a question needs information your documents do not have: today's exchange rate, a new regulation, market prices. System administrators set web search up once for the whole company: Genie Search, whether Genie searches the web at all, and which sites it prefers or avoids. One workspace can get its own values as an exception. While web search is on, each workspace's Admins and Owners can still turn it off for their own workspace. This page explains those settings and how web results mix with your own documents. Workspace Admins and Owners also decide whether their agents search the web, and everyone chooses, per conversation, how much Genie may search.
Web search modes
Four levels decide whether a question searches the web, and the strictest one wins:
| Where | Setting | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Search the web under Settings → Web search in the System administration group (on by default) | When off, no conversation or agent in any workspace searches the web, the chat box no longer offers it, and workspace admins cannot turn it on. A system administrator can give one workspace its own value as an exception |
| Workspace | Web search under Settings → Features in the Workspace group (Admins and Owners) | When off, nobody in this workspace searches the web. While the company has web search off, the switch is greyed out and reads Turned off by your system administrators. |
| Each conversation | Auto, Always or Off, in the chat box's + menu → Web search | Auto (the default): Genie decides for each question. Always: every question also searches the web, shown as a Web: always pill. Off: this conversation never searches the web |
| Each agent | Web Search in the agent editor's Web Search section (on for new agents) | When off, the agent never searches the web. Leave Search Engine empty to use the workspace's default search service (Genie Search, unless the workspace has its own). Max Search Results limits the results per search, and Auto-Fetch Page Content with Pages to Fetch lets the agent read the top pages in full |
Genie, the default assistant, has its own Web search switch in its Default assistant settings (on the Agents page, in Genie's More actions menu): on, it follows the settings above; off, it never searches the web. See Agents and the default assistant.
In short, the system administrators' value (the company's, or a workspace's own exception) is the ceiling: off there means off in the workspace, and on there lets the workspace's admins decide.
To turn web search off for the whole company:
- Open Settings → Web search in the System administration group.
- Under Web search for every workspace, turn off Search the web and click Save. Genie says how many workspaces received the change.
To turn it off for one workspace, a workspace Admin or Owner opens Settings → Features and turns off Web search; turning it back on works the same way.
A system administrator can also give one workspace its own value, for example to keep web search on for one workspace while it is off for the rest. Use Workspaces with their own setting under Web search for every workspace: click Add a workspace, pick the workspace and click Continue, set Search the web, then click Save in the panel. That workspace keeps its value when the company's changes; Use the company's value puts it back.
The change applies to the next question in every conversation.
website-docs/public/screenshots/en/system-web-search.pngA knowledge base whose data protection level forbids web search also turns it off for any answer that uses that knowledge base. See Models and data protection.
Genie Search
Genie Search is the web search every workspace uses. It returns ordinary search results for the question, in the question's language, without ads, "People also ask", related searches or AI summaries. A system administrator sets it up once, at the top of Settings → Web search in the System administration group:
- Enter the Access key your Genie provider gave you. Leave Address empty to use the default Genie Search service, or enter the Genie Search address your organization was given.
- Click Test: Genie runs one search and shows how many results came back and how long it took.
- Click Save. Every workspace uses the new setting from the next question.
The label next to the title says where the setting comes from: Set here, Set at installation (the setting made when Genie was installed) or Not set up. The key is kept secure and never shown again; to keep it while changing the address, leave the key empty. When there is an installation setting, Use the installation setting removes what was saved here.
Search services of a workspace
Genie Search answers in every workspace. A workspace can also use search services of its own, for example one your company already has a contract with. A system administrator sets them up at the bottom of Settings → Web search, under Search services of a workspace:
- Under Workspace, pick the workspace. The settings below it apply to that workspace only.
- Click Add Provider, choose the Provider Type, give it a Name and enter the API Key you got from that service. A service on your company network must first be allowed by a system administrator (see Network and antivirus).
- Turn on Set as default if the workspace should use this service before Genie Search. Click Test Connection, then save.
- Under Provider order, choose a Fallback provider, and keep Use the built-in provider as the last resort on so that Genie Search still answers when the workspace's own services fail.
Genie tries the services in that order: the default, then the fallback, then Genie Search. It moves on when a service fails, finds nothing or finds only unrelated pages. Provider health shows, for each service, the searches, failures and empty or mostly irrelevant answers since the Genie server last started. A workspace's own service bills you directly; your Genie provider can tell you which services are supported.
Domain rules
Genie sorts every web result by the site it comes from, before the model reads it:
| Rule | Sites | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Blocked | Adult and gambling sites, unofficial exchange-rate and gold-price sites | Never used |
| Preferred | Government sites (.gov.vn, chinhphu.vn and other government domains), banks, stock exchanges, major Vietnamese and international news outlets | Moved to the top |
| Demoted | Social networks, video sites, forums, online marketplaces and document-sharing sites (Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Zalo pages, Shopee…) | Used only when fewer than three other results exist, and never as the only source for a fact |
Within each group the search engine's own order is kept, and at most two results come from the same site.
You can add your own sites to each list, for example contoso.test and your industry association as preferred sites, or a competitor's price pages as blocked. A preferred site of yours wins over the built-in demoted list. Enter them under Sites in Web search for every workspace (Never use, Prefer, Use only as a last resort): type a domain and press Enter, then Save. Subdomains are included. The same section sets Searches per question (1 to 3, 2 by default) and Results per search (1 to 50, 10 by default). A workspace with its own setting has its own lists and numbers.
What people see
- Web citations. Web pages appear in the answer's sources next to documents, so people can open and check them. See Sources and citations.
- A note on every answer. One line under the answer says whether the web was used and why, for example "Searched the web because the question needs current information", "Answered from the knowledge base only: internal policy questions do not use the web" or "Web search is turned off for this workspace".
- The chat box choice. People pick Auto, Always or Off per conversation. When web search is not set up, the menu shows Not set up instead. See Web search.
How web search works with your documents
In Auto, Genie decides per question, and your documents come first:
- Knowledge bases are always searched when they are in the conversation's scope. A question the knowledge bases should answer only goes to the web when they find nothing good enough.
- Questions about your own company never search the web. Policies and HR topics such as leave, allowances or "our company rules" are answered from your documents only, because other companies' pages would mislead.
- Comparisons with the outside search both. For "our lunch allowance compared with the market in Ho Chi Minh City", Genie reads the internal figure from your documents and searches the web for the market part only. Your company's own words are not sent to the search engine.
- Time-sensitive questions search the web. Prices, exchange rates, news, "today", "latest" or a recent date.
- Tasks on given text do not. Translating, rewriting, summarising or calculating something the person pasted.
In the answer, your documents are the authority on your company; web pages are treated as dated, unverified sources, and a social media post is never enough on its own. When a time-sensitive question finds nothing reliable online, Genie says so instead of answering from memory.
Good to know
- What leaves your company. Each web search sends the question, or the search query Genie or the agent writes from it, to the search service. When personal data masking is on, masked values (phone numbers, ID numbers, names…) are removed from the query first. See Models and data protection.
- Cost. Web searches are not counted in Usage & cost. Genie Search is part of your Genie service; a workspace's own search service bills you directly.
- Agents shared from another workspace do not search the web if their own workspace turned web search off.
- Genie Search is run by your Genie provider, who can tell your security team where search queries go. If Test fails, check the key and the address, then ask your Genie provider.
- Workspace Admins and Owners can only turn web search off, or back on, for their own workspace under Settings → Features. Everything else on this page is for system administrators: ask them for a search service of the workspace's own, or for other sites and limits.