Already getting sick of seeing ‘AI’ results at the top of a search when all you want is a link to a site?

I just discovered this article showing a way to not see it (although it doesn’t disable it altogether).

TLDR:

  • In Chrome open settings menu, choose Search engine on left menu and scroll down to site search
  • Click Add button and choose a name (eg Old Google, Google Web or whatever)
  • Add a shortcut word (eg web, og, or whatever)
  • Add this URL string: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
  • Save that, and now if you search for something and use the shortcut word you set you’ll just get proper results, no ‘AI’ shown
  • Or, if you don’t want to have to add a shortcut word, you just make that search your default (use the 3 dot menu next to the name you set) and all searches will show that way, no shortcut word needed.

EDIT - meant to add that there are detailed instructions for Edge, Firefox and Safari in the article if you don’t use Chrome

Hope that helps someone - I really don’t like all that extra nonsense when I just want a link to a site that I know exists!

[Obligatory - “or don’t use Chrome/Google…”, I know - but people do, so this might be useful]

  • Carighan Maconar
    link
    03 months ago

    Sadly not. I wish. Or maybe it’s per-country? Here in Germany it’s all Apple. Apple Maps, Apple Weather, etc. And they’re all equally terrible and seem to be extremely US-centric in their results.