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It’s hard to imagine given how popular and entrenched it is in modern society, but today’s Google search is very different from the same product even just a few years ago.
The most obvious change in recent times is the addition of generative AI search results, also known as ‘AI Overview’. This was previously an experimental option called ‘Search Generative Experience’ that users had to choose through Google Labs. The addition of these results (which are generated from across the fabric every time you search with Google’s Gemini AI models) attempts to summarize and pull out the most relevant and important. information based on your search query.
Google is now making this the default search experience in the US (and soon around the world) after last week’s I/O conference, an effort to compete and offset the rise of competitors like Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Still, many users have openly complained about the new Google Gen AI search results, noting that they are often inaccurate – sometimes even dangerous.
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Fortunately, there is a solution for users who want to return to a more ‘pure’ and pristine Google search experience, unmarred by Gen AI results.
Google has added a new “Web” tab to its search engine at the top, removing all Gen AI results and even the older “Featured Snippets,” which ripped text from web pages and reproduced it at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). It also appears that most ads/sponsored posts are being removed.
However, there is no way to make this option remain the default on Google, at least not officially. You have to search, see the AI results and scroll every time.
While it can be cumbersome to navigate to this tab every time you want to search, my old colleague Ernie Smith of the blog Tedium has found a clever solution that some users are applauding.
As he writes:
“…Is there anything you can do to minimize the pain of having to click the “Web” option hidden in a menu every time?
The answer to that question is yes. Google doesn’t make it easy for you, as URLs seem extra cluttered these days, but adding a URL parameter to your search (in this case ‘udm=14’) can take you straight to the web results in a search .“
As long as you set your default search engine in your browser or bookmark the following URL: “https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14”, you should be able to get Internet, Gen AI Free Version from Google every time you search.
On X, users loved and eagerly embraced Smith’s discovery:
It will be fascinating to see how widely this work spread. If enough people go this route, will Google reconsider making Gen AI summary search results the new standard, and switch back to this cleaner and “cleaner” version of Search – a list of “blue links”?
Time will tell.