how are people searching within a website in 2026?

site: gets a lot better with a few extras. put a phrase in quotes for exact match, add filetype:pdf when you're after a document, or a minus in front of a word to drop results with it. and if you only mean finding something on the page you're already looking at, ctrl+f (cmd+f on a mac).

Google with site: in front of the domain, then your search words. Works better than most sites' own search box tbh.