While Google AI Overviews had a tough begin, the search outcomes seem like right here to remain. Almost 50% of all Google searches are actually returning AI Overviews, in keeping with a December 2024 research by Search Engine Journal.
While there are occasions that the AI Overview may be useful, they’re typically extra irritating. This is particularly true when you’re on the lookout for a hyperlink, and never a solution to a question. Thankfully, there may be a simple strategy to configure Google in such a manner that you simply solely get web sites in your search outcomes utilizing “Web” search filter.
Even higher, you may get these link-based outcomes on Google simply by looking out of your browser handle bar. We’ll present you the right way to do it on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Microsoft Edge.
What is the Google Search Web filter?
Google’s new Web filter is much like its filters for outcomes like News, Images, Videos or Shopping. When the Web filter is chosen, your search outcomes will return solely text-based hyperlinks, with no AI summaries, movies or information panels like “Top Stories” or “People Always Ask.”
The new filter ought to seem beneath the search field on the Google Search outcomes web page, amongst different filters like News, Images and Videos. You’ll often need to click on the three-dot “More” menu to see it as an possibility.
The Web filter for Google Search will often be positioned within the menu for More filters beneath the search field.
Clicking the Web filter hyperlink provides you with Google Search outcomes composed solely of text-based hyperlinks, with no solutions, AI or anything. “Web” will now be underlined and highlighted in blue underneath the search question field.
Google’s Web filter removes snippets and different information panels out of your outcomes.
In our preliminary checks of Google’s Web filter, we didn’t see any sponsored search outcomes or different commercials, however that filter will nonetheless return advert outcomes for sure search queries, in keeping with a Google spokesperson. After testing out extra search phrases with the Google Web filter, we have been additionally in a position to see search advertisements for a number of particular queries.
How do I get Google Search Web filter outcomes for my handle bar searches?
Depending in your browser, it is pretty simple to customise your browser settings in order that your handle bar searches go straight to the Google Web filter outcomes. You’ll have to create a customized web site search shortcut in your browser after which set off that search possibility with a key phrase or make it your default for all searches.
The vital URL that you want to keep in mind is . The “%s” represents your search question, and the “udm=14” tag limits your outcomes to the brand new Web filter.
Here’s the right way to add the mandatory customized web site seek for Google’s Web filter within the 4 hottest net desktop browsers — Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.
If you do not wish to trouble with browser settings, you’ll be able to all the time simply use the web site &udm=14, constructed by Ernie Smith of Tedium. It offers a front-end to Google Search with the mandatory Web filter parameter routinely included.
Google Chrome
Open up a Google Chrome browser window, then click on on the three-dot menu within the upper-right nook, subsequent to your Google account profile. Click Settings close to the underside of that menu. You may also get to your Chrome settings by getting into chrome://settings within the browser handle bar.
Select Search engine from the left-hand column, then click on “Manage search engines like google and web site search” in the course of the browser window. Next, scroll all the way down to “Site search” and click on the blue Add button.
In the resultant pop-up window, create a reputation for the brand new search shortcut and a key phrase for triggering it. We selected “Old Google” and “og.” For the final subject — “URL with %s instead of question” — enter that URL we talked about above: . Then click on the blue Add button.
Now while you search your handle bar utilizing “og” + your search time period, you may get outcomes utilizing Google’s Web filter.
If you’d prefer to make it your default search possibility, click on the three-dot menu subsequent to your new web site search and choose “Make default.” After you make the brand new search shortcut your default search, all your address-bar searches will use the Web filter — no key phrase wanted.
After you create the location search shortcut for Google’s Web filter, you can also make it your default search engine.
Microsoft Edge
The Windows browser relies on the Chromium codebase, so the steps for including a Google Search Web filter shortcut are much like Google Chrome. Navigate into Settings by clicking the three-dot menu within the upper-right nook, then choose Privacy, search, and companies.
Near the underside of the next display, choose Address bar and search, then Manage search engines like google. Alternatively, you’ll be able to navigate on to that display by getting into edge://settings/searchEngines in your Edge handle bar.
Click the Add button to create your new web site search shortcut. The Search engine is your identify for the shortcut (I used “Old Google”), the Shortcut is the time period that triggers that particular web site search (I used “og”), and the URL template is the string that triggers the Google Search Web filter:
Search engines in Microsoft Edge work very equally to Google Chrome.
To make that new Google URL your default search, return to the Address bar and search settings web page and click on on the drop-down menu subsequent to Search engine used within the handle bar. Select your new customized web site search, and your handle bar searches will default to the Google Search Web filter.
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox works a bit bit otherwise for organising search shortcuts. Instead of utilizing the search settings, you may create a brand new bookmark with a key phrase shortcut, then use that key phrase within the handle bar to set off the Web filter outcomes for Google Search. Unfortunately, Firefox would not allow you to add new search engines like google in its desktop model.
From the Bookmarks drop-down in Firefox, choose Manage Bookmarks. On the next display, right-click on the folder in your Bookmarks the place you would like to position the shortcut, then choose “Add Bookmark.” (Since you may be triggering it from the handle bar, it would not matter the place the bookmark lives.)
In the next pop-up window, enter a Name (for instance, “Old Google”), the URL and a Keyword (comparable to “og”) to save lots of the search filter as a bookmark. Hit the “Save” button, and the Google Web filter outcomes shall be accessible by getting into your key phrase earlier than any address-bar searches.
To search Google’s Web filter with Mozilla Firefox, you may want to make use of a bookmark with a key phrase shortcut.
Apple Safari
Safari would not allow customized web site shortcuts by default. The solely manner we have been in a position so as to add the Google Web filter search was by putting in the free Safari extension Smart Keyword Search, which permits web site search shortcuts.
After putting in Smart Keyword Search, the very first thing you may have to do is allow it to regulate your Google search outcomes. Go into Settings, click on Extensions on the prime of the window, choose Smart Keyword Search, then click on on the “Edit Websites” button. On the next web page, click on the drop-down menu subsequent to google.com and choose “Allow.”
You’ll want to permit the Smart Keyword Search extension the permission to regulate Google searches.
Now shut the Settings window, and click on the icon for Smart Keyword Search that seems subsequent to the Safari handle bar. You’ll see a pop-up window with the varied “guidelines” the extension makes use of to switch searches. Click the “compose” button to begin a brand new rule, then enter a reputation (comparable to. “Old Google”), prefix (for instance, “og”) and a well-recognized URL for the Web filter search shortcut.
The Smart Keyword Search extension for Safari makes use of barely totally different syntax.
Smart Keyword Search makes use of the variable “{search}” as a substitute of “%s” to point a search question, so you may have to enter a barely totally different URL: https://google.com/search?q={search}&utm=14. Hit the “submit” button. Now getting into “og” (or your chosen prefix) earlier than any searches in your handle bar will return outcomes restricted by Google’s Web filter.
How to limit your Google Web searches to ‘verbatim’ outcomes
You can additional customise your searches on Google in order that the search engine solely returns outcomes primarily based on the precise phrases that you simply use — not synonyms or associated phrases. The “verbatim” possibility was launched again in 2011 and is often accessed through the “Tools” hyperlink underneath most Google searches.
To add a “verbatim” restriction to your Web filter shortcut, append the attribute “&tbs=li:1” to the top of your customized search URL: &tbs=li:1
Any searches that you simply make utilizing that new URL will now solely return text-based net hyperlinks to your precise search queries.
For extra, uncover the right way to use Google’s circle-to-search function on the iPhone and 5 Google Assistant settings you want to change proper now.
Correction, July 2: An earlier model of this story misstated the absence of commercials on Google Web filter outcomes. After additional testing, we have been in a position to verify that search advertisements can seem on Google Search Web filter outcomes.
