Retrieves real-time or external information that isn’t available in Salesforce CRM. Use it for questions about news, market trends, competitor details, and product comparisons, or when Salesforce answers need added context from the web.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions with Foundations, or Agentforce 1 or Einstein 1 Editions |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| See Common User Access for Standard Agent Actions. | |
Action Details
| API Name | WebSearch |
| Reference Action Type | Standard Action |
| Reference Action |
Search the Web (webSearchStream) |
| Does this action execute one or more prompt templates? | Yes |
Search the Web and Prompt Templates
This action is a standard invocable action that uses internal-only prompt templates to generate the final web search summary.
If admins want to change the output format (for example, bullet points instead of paragraphs), they can’t edit the internal prompt template directly. Instead, admins must either create a new version of the out-of-the-box General Web Search subagent with updated instructions or add new instructions to another subagent where the action is used.
Guidelines and Considerations
- The Search the Web agent action isn’t supported in Government Cloud.
- Results are generated from external sources and displayed with citations.
- When adding the Search the Web action to an existing subagent, admins must fine-tune the instructions so the agent uses the correct prompt to initiate conversations.
- Performance may vary depending on the search provider.
- OpenAI requests through the Large Language Model Gateway (LLMG) are limited to 500 requests per minute per org. For more information, see Large Language Model Limits.
- The Search the Web action supports different search providers, such as OpenAI, BrightData, or You.com. See Set the Search Provider for Search the Web Agent Action.
- The Search Provider field doesn’t validate the entered value at configuration time. If you enter an unsupported or misspelled provider name, the error appears only during preview testing or live agent sessions. Enter a supported provider: OpenAI, BrightData, or You.com. Provider names aren’t case sensitive (for example, BrightData, brightdata, or BRIGHTDATA).
- BrightData has a default rate limit of 1000 queries per hour per org. This limit is configurable. To adjust it, contact Salesforce Support.
- To limit web search results to specific websites, use Allowed Domains or Excluded Domains. Use Allowed Domains when you want to restrict searches to a specific set of trusted sources. Use Excluded Domains when you want agents to search the open web but need to block specific sites. If you already use Allowed Domains on the Search the Web action, don’t also set Excluded Domains. Using both on the same action can return few or no results. Test the action before you add it to an agent in production. See Customize Allowed Domains for the Search the Web Agent Action and Customize Excluded Domains for the Search the Web Agent Action.
- Allowed and excluded domains apply to every search, regardless of the selected search provider.
- You can specify up to 10 allowed domains or 10 excluded domains per Search the Web action.
- The action accepts subdomains and full URLs, but uses only the base domain. Enter domains as a comma-separated list, without http://, https://, or www. The action also accepts domains with these prefixes, but they are not required.
- If you enter more than 10 allowed domains or more than 10 excluded domains, an invalid input error is returned.
- If some allowed domains are invalid, results are returned only from valid allowed domains. If none of the allowed domains are valid or reachable, the action returns no results. If some excluded domains are invalid, only valid excluded domains are filtered from results. If none of the excluded domains are valid or reachable, the action returns results normally without filtering.
- The Search the Web action can return "No search results found" when no web results match the query, including when Allowed Domains or Excluded Domains narrow the search.