While our dependence on Google may have subsided a little due to ChatGPT and other chatbots, it’s still a great resource to find unique human takes, fact-check claims, and get up-to-date information—something LLMs aren’t great at. However, Google Search has been awful lately, showing all kinds of irrelevant results, including AI-generated articles that feel generic and hard to trust.
With a few tweaks to Google Search, I’ve made it work better and now often get only relevant results. Whether I need to find results from a specific source or avoid AI content altogether, these small changes fixed my biggest annoyances with the search giant.
Turn off AI from the results
The AI overview can be annoying
Google’s AI Overviews started as an optional Search Labs feature but are now pushed to everyone with no real opt-out. I prefer using AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini for low-stakes questions and using standard Google Search with real sources for serious topics. The problem is that Google doesn’t let you toggle AI Overviews off, but there’s a workaround.
By changing your default search engine to a modified Google URL, you can force the web-only view that skips the AI box entirely. In Chrome, go to chrome://settings/searchEngines, then under Site search, click Add. Name it something like Turn Off AI Overview, set the shortcut to @web, and then paste the following URL: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&udm=14. Once done, save it, then click the three dots next to your new entry and select Make default. If you don’t see it, expand Additional sites and then set it as default.
If you are on a phone, the process is a bit different. Firefox lets you add a custom search engine manually, so go to Settings, tap Search, then Default search engine, and add a new one with google.com/search?udm=14&q=%s as the search string. For Chrome on mobile, visit tenbluelinks.org first, run a search, then go to Settings and select Google Web from the recently visited section. Your searches now bypass AI Overviews entirely.
The udm=14 parameter is the key here, which forces Google to show the classic web view with just the blue links. It’s not a perfect solution since some local search features don’t work as smoothly, but for general research and fact-finding, it’s a worthwhile trade-off.
Restrict search results to specific sources
The site operator narrows things down
image credit – self captured (Tashreef Shareef) – No Attribution Required
When I need accurate information on government policies or academic research, I don’t want random blog posts cluttering my results. The “site:” operator fixes this by narrowing the results to relevant ones. For example, if you type site: .gov before your search terms, Google will only show results from government websites, or site: .edu for educational institutions.
This works for any domain. If I want to find my own articles, I type site:makeuseof.com tashreef shareef and only see pieces I’ve written. You can combine operators, too. For instance, searching site:reddit.com best budget laptop 2024 surfaces only Reddit discussions on the topic, which often contain more honest opinions than review sites that may have their own bias.
However, with the .edu site operator, anyone can technically register a .edu (country-specific) domain, so results may not always be 100% from legitimate educational institutions. But for most practical purposes, this operator dramatically cuts filters irrelevant domains and offers more specific results than a generic search ever could. It’s also useful if you frequently search for health topics using the site:nih.gov or site:mayoclinic.org operator to get grounded results in reputable medical sources rather than questionable wellness blogs.
Use search filters
Narrow results by time and type
Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOfCredit: Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf
Google’s built-in filters are surprisingly powerful once you know where to find them. After running a search, look for the tabs at the top—Videos, Images, Forums, and more. The Forums tab is useful when you want real human experiences rather than SEO-optimized articles. Click it, and you’ll see discussions from Reddit, Quora, and other community sites.
For even more specific results, look in the Tools dropdown. Click Tools in the top right corner of your Google search page, and you can filter results by time, such as past hour, past 24 hours, past week, month, year, or set a custom range. This is again useful for finding recent information on fast-moving topics or filtering out outdated tutorials. If I’m troubleshooting a software bug, I always filter to the past year to avoid solutions that no longer work.
For even more control, click on Advanced Search under the Tools dropdown. Here you can specify exact phrases, exclude certain words, limit results to specific languages or regions, and even filter by file type. If you need a PDF manual for a product, typing filetype:pdf [product name] manual gets you straight to downloadable documents instead of web pages. You can also search for spreadsheets with filetype:xls or presentations with filetype:ppt. It’s like a search engine within the search engine, and most people never even know these options exist.
Search by images
Reverse image search finds what words can’t
Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOfCredit: Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf
Sometimes you have a picture but no words to describe it. Maybe you spotted interesting furniture at a friend’s place, saw someone wearing sunglasses you liked, or received a photo that looks suspiciously fake. Google Lens makes life easier on Android with its reverse image search, but it’s only available on mobile devices.
On a PC, you can still reverse search images using Google Search. Go to images.google.com and click the camera icon, then upload an image or paste a URL. Google will show you visually similar images, identify objects in the picture, and list pages where the same image appears online.
I use reverse image search to check product authenticity before buying from unfamiliar sellers. If the same product images appear on dozens of different sites, that’s often a red flag. The feature also helps identify plants, landmarks, and artwork. I once used it to track down a piece of wall art I’d seen at a restaurant, and it found the exact product on Etsy within seconds.
Create your own curated sources of websites
Preferred sources put sites you trust first
Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOfCredit: Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf
Google recently rolled out a Preferred Sources feature that lets you tell Search which news sites you’d like to see more often. It was previously an experimental Labs feature, but is now available to English users in the US and India. When you run a news-related search, look for the button next to the Top stories label and click it to open a picker where you can add any website as a preferred source.
There’s no stated limit on how many sites you can add, so I’ve built a list of outlets I consider trustworthy. Google can’t guarantee these sites will always appear, but when they publish content related to your query, their stories should be more prominent in the Top stories section. Sometimes Google even shows a separate From your sources block containing only your selected outlets.
These tweaks won’t fix everything, but they help
Google Search has its problems, and I’ve even tried replacing it with my own search engine at one point. But for most people, completely abandoning Google isn’t practical—its index is simply too comprehensive, and muscle memory keeps us typing into that familiar search bar. These tweaks don’t magically change Google into what it used to be, but they do make it more usable for the kind of research that matters.
The AI Overview bypass alone has made my daily searches less frustrating. Combined with site operators, time filters, and preferred sources, I’m getting closer to the results I actually want instead of what Google thinks I should see. Start by using site operators or the Tools drop-down menu, then move to other advanced features to get better search results.
