After public disapproval and viral examples of strange or inaccurate AI-generated advice, like telling users to eat rocks or put glue on pizza, Google has added ways to limit and control AI overviews in search results.
Google has not offered a permanent way to turn off all AI content, but users now have more ways to reduce its presence and improve accuracy.
Options To Limit AI Answers
- The web filter now adds a dedicated tab for web search, excluding AI summaries, knowledge panels, or most videos.
- Limitation: You have to select this option for every search since it cannot be set as the default view right now.
- Search Labs Control. If you joined AI experimental features through Search Labs, you can turn them off on the Google app or desktop. Click the beaker icon and adjust the settings to disable AI overuse and more.
- Browser extensions. Third-party tools like Hide and Google AI Overviews are available for Chrome and Firefox. These extensions automatically remove AI summaries from your search results.
- The hyphen AI search modifier adding “-AI” or similar terms. (eg, “no AI”) to the end of your search can sometimes prevent the AI banner from appearing.
Changes to AI Functionality
Besides giving users more control, Google has also added extra safeguards.
- Restricted topics: AI overviews will not appear for some hard news topics, or when accuracy and up-to-date information are especially important.
- Google made specific changes to safeguard quality in health-related searches.
- Source restriction: Google now limits the use of user-generated content, like social media posts, to help prevent misleading advice.
Despite these changes, Google maintains that AI overviews improved search and plans to keep them as a permanent feature.
I don’t mind Google’s AI mode. Sometimes it’s actually helpful for questions that are hard to phrase with just keywords, but I find AI overviews in regular results much less useful.
AI Overviews launched in May 2024 generate natural-language responses using information from Google search results. Although they’ve improved since their early issues, I still see too many errors.
The need to fact-check each AI overview diminishes its value, as it requires returning to the original source. For this reason, a direct presentation of relevant links is often preferable to potentially inaccurate AI-generated summaries.
If you miss when Google just showed a list of links, the company now offers a web filter that only displays website links. With some quick setup, you can make this your default search view.
To see only website links, adjust your browser. I’ll show you how to do it in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
What Exactly Is the Google Search Web Filter?
The new web filter works like Google’s News, Images, Videos, or Shopping filters. Choosing it shows only text links, no AI summaries, videos, or panels like Top Stories or People Also Ask.
You will find the new filter below the search box next to News, Images, and Videos. If you don’t see it, click the three-dot “More” menu to find it.
When you click the web filter, your search results will be made up entirely of text-based links with no answers, AI, or extras. The word “web” will be underlined and highlighted in blue below the search box.
In my initial tests, when I first tried Google’s web filter, I didn’t see any sponsored results or ads. However, a Google spokesperson said the filter can still show ads for some searches. After testing more search terms, I did see ads for a few specific queries.
Web Filters for Browser Bar Searches
Let’s look at how you can set up your browser. So, searches from your address bar use the Google web filter. You just need to create a custom site search shortcut using a keyword or set it as your default for all searches.
The key URL is %s. %s stands for your search, and UDM = 14 activates the web filter results.
Here are some steps to add a custom site search for Google’s web filter in the four most popular desktop browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari. Not to bother with browser settings, you can always just use the website built by Ernie Smith of TDM: & UDM=14. It provides a front-end to Google search with the necessary web filter parameter automatically included.
Google Chrome
Open Google Chrome and click the three-dot button in the top right, then select Settings from the menu. Alternatively, type chrome://settings in the address bar to open the settings page directly.
Select a search engine. Choose the search engine from the left column. Then click Manage Search Engines and Site Search in the center of the window. Scroll down to Site Search and click the blue Add button. p-hyphen-up window, create a name for the new search shortcut and a keyword for triggering it. I chose “old Google” and “og” for the last field.
URL with percentages in place of query: enter the URL I mentioned above, %, then click the blue Add button.
Now, when you type OG followed by your search term in the address bar, you will get results using Google’s Web Filter. Click the three-dot menu next to your new site search and select Make Default. After you make the new search shortcut your default, all your address bar searches will use the web filter. No keyword needed.
Microsoft Edge
Click the ellipses menu in the top right, open Settings, and choose Privacy, Search, and Services. Scroll down to the Address bar, Search, and select Manage search engines or type edge://settings/searchEngines in the address bar to go there directly.
Click Add for a new shortcut. Enter a name like “old Google”, a trigger word like “og”, and this URL: %s
To set your Google URL as the default, return to the address bar and enter a search query. Open the search engine dropdown, select your custom search, and you are done.
Mozilla Firefox
In Firefox, create a search keyword by making a bookmark. Use this keyword in the address bar to access Google Web Filter results. Note that Firefox’s desktop version does not allow direct addition of search engines.
Open Bookmarks, choose Manage Bookmarks. Right-click a folder and select Add Bookmark. The folder location doesn’t matter for use in the address bar.
Enter a name like “old Google”, the URL %s, and a keyword such as OG. Click Save. Use your keyword in the address bar for filtered results.
Apple Safari
Safari does not natively support custom set shortcuts. To set up a Google Web Filter search, install the free Safari extension Smart Keyword Search. This allows you to create and use search shortcuts in Safari.
Enable Smart Keyword Search to modify Google search results. Open Settings, click Extensions at the top. Select Smart Keyword Search and click Edit Websites. Use the drop-down menu next to Google.com and choose Allow.
Close settings. Click the smart keyword search icon in the pop-up, next to the address bar. Click compose for a new rule. Enter a name like “old Google,” a prefix like “Moji,” and the filter search URL. Smart keyword {search} uses search instead of %S for queries. So use {search}. Now type your prefix in the address bar for Google’s web filter.
Source: Just Want Links in Google Search Results Instead of AI Overviews? Here’s How to Do It
