How to Fix Ugly Logo-Filled Google Search Results
I had a feeling that something was wrong the other day when I googled. As it turns out, Google has slightly redesigned its search results page, adding badges, a large “AD” icon for sponsored results, and changing the location of site URLs.
At the risk of sounding like grumpy dolls like Waldorf and Statler, I don’t like this. And if you share my lack of joy about these messy results, you can undo some of the changes Google made and restore peace and order in your searches.
To get started, you need an ad blocker in your browser that allows you to block elements on websites. I use the powerful UBlock Origin for this, but AdBlock Plus will work too. Go to your extension’s settings – wherever you are, you can add custom filters – and enter these filters to clear different parts of the Google search results page:
- To remove an icon: google.com ##. XA33Gc
- To remove URL: google.com ##. IUh30.bc.rpCHfe
- To remove the arrow next to the url: google.com ### am-b0 and google.com ##. GHDvEf.ab_button
- To remove everything: google.com ##. TbwUpd and google.com ### am-b0 and google.com ##. GHDvEf.ab_button
And here is a more easily inserted version of the latter two.
To remove the arrow next to the URL:
google.com ### am-b0 google.com ##. GHDvEf.ab_button
To remove everything
google.com ##. TbwUpd google.com ### am-b0 google.com ##. GHDvEf.ab_button
With these little filters, I was able to change my search results page from this monster:
More delight:
And since I’m wild, let’s get rid of those annoying videos too. Inject this filter into your ad blocker to take care of it: google.com ## g-section-with-header: has-text (/ Videos /)
When you do this, your page is converted to this:
I couldn’t be happier. This is now a more elegant search results page.