A version of this post originally appeared onTedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail.
Last month, Google announced some big changes to its search engine that are, in a word, infuriating, to users like myself.
Google has started adding AI overviews to many of its search results, which essentially generate pre-processed answers to search queries. If you’re using Google to actually find websites rather than get answers, it $!@(&!@ sucks.
But in the midst of all this, Google quietly added something else to its results—a “Web” filter that presents what Google used to look like a decade ago, no extra junk. While Google made its AI-focused changes known on its biggest stage—during its Google I/O event—the Web filter was curiously announced on Twitter by Search Liaison Danny Sullivan.
As Sullivan wrote:
We’ve added this after hearing from some that there are times when they’d prefer to just see links to web pages in their search results, such as if they’re looking for longer-form text documents, using a device with limited internet access, or those who just prefer text-based results shown separately from search features. If you’re in that group, enjoy!
The results are fascinating. It’s essentially Google, minus the extra fluff. No parsing of the information in the results. No surfacing metadata like address or link info. No knowledge panels, but also, no ads. It looks like the Google we learned to love in the early 2000s, buried under the “More” menu.
For power searchers like myself, it’s likely going to be an amazing tool. But Google’s decision to bury it ensures that few people will use it. The company has essentially bet that you’ll be better off with a pre-parsed guess produced by its AI engine.
It’s worth understanding the tradeoffs, though. A simplified view does not replace the declining quality of Google’s results, largely caused by decades of SEO optimization by website creators. The same overly optimized results are going to be there, like it or not. It is not Google circa 2001; it is a Google-circa-2001 presentation of Google circa 2024, a very different site.
But if you understand the tradeoffs, it can be a great tool.
And here’s the trick to using it without having to click the ‘Web’ option buried in a menu every single time. Google does not make it easy, but by adding a URL parameter to your search—in this case, “udm=14”—you can get directly to the Web results in a search.
That sounds like extra work until you realize that many browsers allow you to add custom search engines by adding the %s entry as a stand-in for the search term you put in. And it works great in the case of Google.
You can specify the default url for the omnibar search on your browser. Ernie Smith
In Vivaldi, my weapon of choice, I did this:
●Go to Settings -> Search
●Look at the list of search engines, and hit the plus button at the bottom left of the dialog box to add a new one
●Name the new item “Google Web Only,” and give it the nickname of “gw”
●Set the URL as https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
●Set it as your default search
Now, when you use the omnibar on your browser of choice, it will automatically push you to the Google Web Only search. If you want a more traditional search, add a “g” in front of the search in your omnibar, and it will give you the full-fat search, knowledge panels and all. Don’t want to make it your default? Don’t.
A variant of this should work for most Chromium-based browsers, including Chrome proper. It is also possible in Firefox with an extension. Safari, which does not allow you to add custom search engines by default, is a little more complicated, but it is possible through the use of custom extensions like HyperWeb for iOS. I’m still looking for a Safari-for-Mac solution.
Or, you can use a front-end that I created at udm14.com or udm14.org.
When you want something more elemental, less adulterated, it’s there, no extra junk.
It’s depressing that it’s gotten to this, isn’t it?
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