Spoiler: the magic word isn't "please."
January 30, 2025 12:37 PM   Subscribe

A simple trick to keep google from putting AI slop before your search results.
posted by signal (59 comments total) 85 users marked this as a favorite
 
I already knew this, and I suspect I out about it the same way the author did -- by being frustrated enough to add "fucking" to my search because all I found was garbage.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:39 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]


ah, i usually just use https://udm14.com/
but this method might be more fun
posted by nat at 12:43 PM on January 30 [23 favorites]


Wow. Sometimes the AI results will even get replaced with one of those old-style "featured snippets"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:43 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


Oh. Oh my god. I mean, thank you… but also strong “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.” It’s patently obvious why this works and it makes me hate everything.
posted by Ryvar at 12:49 PM on January 30 [26 favorites]


Just, you know... watch out for Rule 34.
posted by ZakDaddy at 1:01 PM on January 30 [22 favorites]


Thank you so very much. I had almost entirely given up on Google as a search engine.
posted by MrNoodlePants at 1:07 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]


I absolutely love this.

(I may dub this "the Roy Kent Manoeuvre.")

Thank you, signal!
posted by kristi at 1:18 PM on January 30 [22 favorites]


who fucking invented the backflip
posted by phunniemee at 1:25 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]


Fucking awesome. Thank you.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:31 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


If you don't want to curse you can also just append "-noai" which does the same thing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:36 PM on January 30 [15 favorites]


A lot less satisfying though...
posted by Hairy Lobster at 1:37 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]


I did give up entirely on Google as a search engine. I'm paying $10/month for Kagi. It's great. Mostly as a regular search engine, its basic results are better. It also has an AI thing (Quick Answer) that seems much more useful and less obtrusive than the garbage Google is embarrassing itself with.

Bing's worth a look too if you want a free alternative to Google. It also has AI enhancement but it's often actually useful, unlike the Gemini junk.
posted by Nelson at 1:40 PM on January 30 [12 favorites]


marginalia search
posted by robbyrobs at 1:44 PM on January 30 [7 favorites]


You can also set up your browser so that searches you run from the address bar don't give you AI and info boxes in the results. I've done this on all my browsers, and have managed to forget that AI summaries are a thing, most of the time.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:44 PM on January 30 [23 favorites]


I did it by using custom ublock origin rules. Use the element zapper to get rid of anything on a page you don't want to see.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 1:46 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]


If you combine &udm=14 and &tbs=li:1 then you will get unenhanced (i.e. just the results) search in verbatim mode, which is like the Google of ten years ago. My searches have started to produce the result I want on the first page, results where they run out after a couple of pages and Google says there's nothing else that's a good match, etc. It's like the time before google was wrecked.

If you're using Safari then you need something like Redirect Web to rewrite Google URLs to affect the built-in Safari search mechanism (which otherwise doesn't allow one to modify URLs as readily as the other browsers do). The modification below or one alike it will work in any method, but the field names are for Redirect Web / Safari specifically:

Type — Original
Redirect From (regex) — https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.(?:com|com\.[a-z]{2}|co\.[a-z]{2}|[a-z]{2})\/search\?(?:.*&)?q=.*$
Redirect To — $0&udm=14&tbs=li:1
Excluded (regex) — .*[?&](tbm=|udm=).*
posted by Callisto Prime at 1:52 PM on January 30 [37 favorites]


which is like the Google of ten years ago.

It's better than the full AI slop we get now, but unfortunately it's not as good as ten years ago -- Google has basically deprioritized "stale" content SO HARD that it's damn near impossible to find anything from a website which has evergreen information but hasn't been updated in a long time. Now Google (and basically everyone else) practically refuses to send you to a website last updated 10 years ago, even if it's a perfect match. And it's ever increasingly harder to find a website on Google's first page of results that isn't part of Adsense.
posted by tclark at 2:04 PM on January 30 [19 favorites]


Just, um, make sure you have SafeSearch enabled. Otherwise, you'll get less of one and a lot more of, um, another kind of result.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:38 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]


Now Google (and basically everyone else) practically refuses to send you to a website last updated 10 years ago, even if it's a perfect match.

I beg to differ. Every time I search for something technical, I get a StackOverflow page that was created 11 years, 4 months, and 3 days ago and pertains to something roughly 12 versions behind what I'm currently using.
posted by Ickster at 2:40 PM on January 30 [12 favorites]


Ban search.

To answer a question that barely needs asking: yes, actually.
posted by Sperry Topsider at 2:50 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


Okay, so you wield 'Fucking' with one hand to quench the AI onslaught, but to win you also need to wield 'SafeSearch' with the other to repeal the porn assault conjured by your primary weapon. It's just one of those Cyperpunk things. It's fine.
posted by Ashenmote at 3:46 PM on January 30 [12 favorites]


Remember kids, always practice safe search.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:55 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]


Set an AI to fight an AI; install GreaseMonkey (or an equivalent, like TamperMonkey) into your browser, install this script, have all your Google Searches automagically get udm=14 added. (And a few misc parameters removed.) Written by an LLM, by taking an initial prompt's output and feeding it back in with variations of, "How can this be made more professional and robust, without negatively affecting the core logic?". Never have to think about Google's AI schlock again (at least until they update their backend).


https://pastebin.com/frdGNNpZ
posted by DataPacRat at 4:01 PM on January 30 [6 favorites]


I wanted the cool, sexy cyberpunk dystopia I was promised, not...

_checks history of cyberpunk literature_

No, this checks out.
posted by mrgoat at 4:01 PM on January 30 [8 favorites]


Don't go alone, make your questions count and bow out before you run out of mana.
posted by Ashenmote at 4:25 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


This is amazing. I love it. Thank you so much.
posted by corb at 4:26 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]


This is amazing. I do a lot of technical legal searches and AI slop never even properly understands what I'm asking. The results have been less than useless.
posted by 1adam12 at 4:47 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]


Fuck yeah!
posted by Pronoiac at 4:48 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


This also works for getting a human on the phone in many automated calling trees. My partner and I have tested it 3 times now, after getting nowhere with robots, we add a swear word, and all of a sudden we are routed to a human.

I hate that this works, even talking to a robot it feels bad to swear at it.
posted by nirak at 4:53 PM on January 30 [17 favorites]


They need to make it an opt-in , not opt-out feature. Otherwise the bots will win. It _matters_ what your neighbors and your kids and your kids schoolmates are getting pushed on them; they have a voice and a vote, as they should, but they need to have the best information and the best understanding of how to find and vet information for themselves, let alone that they need actual true information and a little more detail than they're expecting, sometimes, just to keep us all growing together.
posted by amtho at 6:20 PM on January 30 [8 favorites]


If I could set up an internet monkey knife-fight, it would be between StackOverflow and Pinterest and I'd be hoping they both lose.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:29 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]


kristi: (I may dub this "the Roy Kent Manoeuvre.")

Pretty sure that's the thing he does with his hips to make it seem like his penis has a curve in it.
posted by tzikeh at 6:57 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]


I tried it. Now I keep getting "massage device" ads.
posted by fubar at 8:12 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


so wait... how is this any different from any other fucking time i fucking search for something on fucking google
posted by not_on_display at 8:58 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]


Fuckin' well better believe I'm going to do this! Will keep noai in my pocket, but how satisfying this is. Now, if I could just set f'ing Bing on fire and burn Pinterest to ashes along with it, my search experience would be most pleasant
posted by BlueHorse at 9:31 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


I just added Google Web as my default search engine and a) I don't need to remember a hack every time I search for anything and b) I haven't seen a 'Sponsored' panel or AI overview in nearly a year.

instructions here - https://tedium.co/2024/05/17/google-web-search-make-default/ takes two minutes.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:56 AM on January 31 [7 favorites]


I beg to differ. Every time I search for something technical, I get a StackOverflow page that was created 11 years, 4 months, and 3 days ago and pertains to something roughly 12 versions behind what I'm currently using.

Even if the content is stale, the StackOverlow page gets updates which pushes it back to the top — there are all kinds of sidebars and things on there with constantly updated content.

Anecdotal: I run a little e-commerce site (which gets first page results in its niche) and I estimate that I need to update my pages about once a week or even daily to keep it there. My personal pet theory is that they quietly rank websites the same way that Instagram ranks social media posts. If you're not active every minute of the day, you're at the bottom of the barrel with the other stałe pickles.

Unfortunately.
posted by UN at 2:44 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]


stałe pickles

Speaking of Google's AI slop, autocorrect just keeps getting worse and worse. Soon I'll be typing swear words to stop that too..
posted by UN at 4:40 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]


What's ironic to me is Google's search results and the internet generally are such trash these days that fairly often, in a fit of impatience, I end up typing my question into ChatGPT where I can at least get more specific search terms that yield better results.

That, or, type 'reddit' after the search terms.
posted by kitcat at 7:13 AM on January 31


I thought it was just me.
It's taking a lot longer to find what I'm looking for now.
Usually have go through a couple of pages ,then try a different search term
It can take a few attempts ,when before it would be on the first or second page.

Thanks for the suggestions to improve the search results.
posted by yyz at 7:37 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]


If I could set up an internet monkey knife-fight, it would be between StackOverflow and Pinterest and I'd be hoping they both lose.

If you know a bit or two about chess, and want to see bots fight, this is the place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHq4EKMg7fI
posted by DreamerFi at 8:14 AM on January 31


I beg to differ. Every time I search for something technical, I get a StackOverflow page that was created 11 years, 4 months, and 3 days ago and pertains to something roughly 12 versions behind what I'm currently using.

See this is exactly my point -- basically the "last modified" date the crawler sees everywhere on Stack Overflow and most of these other websites is "today" -- if course the CONTENT was made 11 years ago, but that's how Stack Overflow gets into the top of every result. Every page to you might be old but to the spider, it was modified today.
posted by tclark at 9:02 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]


If you combine &udm=14 and &tbs=li:1 then you will get unenhanced (i.e. just the results) search in verbatim mode, which is like the Google of ten years ago.

I could kiss you for this! It really does feel like ten years ago. Here's an example of how it's done for anyone like me who works off of examples.

https://www.google.com/search?q=arduino+greenhouse+project&udm=14&tbs=li:1
posted by kitcat at 9:21 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]


Many years ago we had a very vigorous fucking discussion on fucking Metatalk about whether we should freely swear like fucking sailors on MeFi or if we should just fucking not so people could safely read Metafilter at fucking work without triggering content filters or make it work safe as a reference, and as I recall the arguments got a little shitty.

This is one of the reasons why I was firmly in the fucking swearing like a fucking sailor should be allowed camp. It wasn't just a knee jerk reaction to censorship. It's usually a reliable way to tell platforms that want to abuse you as their saleable product to go fuck themselves and take a flying fuck at a rolling donut on the fucking moon.

Be ungovernable.
posted by loquacious at 1:05 PM on January 31 [11 favorites]


That's fucking beautiful, loquacious.
Or, as the youths say, I fuck with it.
posted by signal at 1:50 PM on January 31


Its just a goat
posted by Lanark at 2:45 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]


Cheers, kitcat. Tell more people!
posted by Callisto Prime at 3:08 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]


udm=14 is also available as an extension for firefox
posted by infini at 4:59 PM on January 31


For Firefox there's this udm=14 extension, but I'm wondering if this one (Redirector) can add the &tbs=li:1
posted by achrise at 5:43 PM on January 31


Here are the instructions for making Callisto Prime's search hack your default in Chrome:

1. Go to Chrome Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search.
2. Click "Add" under Site search.
3. Fill in the details:

Search engine: Google (Custom)
Shortcut: g
URL with %s in place of query:
https://www.google.com/searchq=%s&udm=14&tbs=li:1

4. Click Save.
5. Set it as default by clicking the three dots next to it and choosing Make default.
posted by kitcat at 7:26 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]


A timely and important thread. Thanks to all.

Do these tricks work on alternative search sites that are basically just anonymisers of the Google search engine?

e.g. Duckduckgo, Startpage, etc.
posted by Pouteria at 8:36 PM on January 31


That Firefox Redirector extension should work without any changes for both the original and target URL in my regex examples.
posted by Callisto Prime at 9:41 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]




Safari on iOS doesn’t seem to give this granular a choice for search engine. Any hacks to get around it?
posted by nat at 11:29 PM on January 31


Kitkat's useful steps above have a typo:

https://www.google.com/searchq=%s&udm=14&tbs=li:1

should be

https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14&tbs=li:1
posted by nat at 3:15 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]


Geez louise, how did I manage that in a straight copy-paste? Thanks nat.
posted by kitcat at 7:59 AM on February 1


nat, I just tried using Redirect Web for Safari per Callisto Prime’s comment way above:

The modification below or one alike it will work in any method, but the field names are for Redirect Web / Safari specifically:

Type — Original
Redirect From (regex) — https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.(?:com|com\.[a-z]{2}|co\.[a-z]{2}|[a-z]{2})\/search\?(?:.*&)?q=.*$
Redirect To — $0&udm=14&tbs=li:1
Excluded (regex) — .*[?&](tbm=|udm=).*


I just went into Redirect Web’s library and grabbed the udm-14 premade redirect and added the &tbs=li:1 to it. Redirect Web does have a cost to unlock more features and have more than a couple of redirects, but for just the one redirect it doesn’t look like you have to pay.
posted by eekernohan at 8:49 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]


I keep telling people swearing at things actually helps, but they never fucking believe me.
posted by gelfin at 12:59 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]


stałe pickles is my new favourite low-key insult. for once, autocorrect gives back. it’s about fucking time.
posted by tamarack at 9:22 PM on February 1


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