Not a fan of Google AI Overview? Here’s how to get rid of it!

November 5, 2024

Google has recently added an AI-generated overview at the top of search results. They sometimes give questionable advice or incorrect information. If you do not like this feature you can turn this off with a simple change in the parameters but there’s actually a workaround. Let’s look deeper into it.

No more Google AI overview

Google has a “web” search filter that shows traditional search results which gives you clean results without AI summaries. It shows the classic “10 blue links” style of results. However, the downside is Google doesn’t let you make this your default view normally.

For this Google search uses URL parameters “&udm=14”(an extra bit of text in the web address).

How does &udm=14 work?

When the user adds &udm=14 to a Google search URL, it forces Google to show classic results. You can test this by adding “&udm=14” to the end of any Google search URL. The image below shows the before and after results of the search bar.

Additionally, you can even make this permanent in your browser by following these simple steps.

For Chrome

Right-click the address bar
Select “Manage search engines”
Add a new search engine
Name it something like “Google Web”
Use this URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14

For Firefox

First type “about:config” in the address bar
Search for “browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh”
Click the plus button
Go to Settings then – Search
Scroll to the search engine section
Add a new search engine with the same URL as above

There are two ways to use this. You can either make this a default feature or use a shortcut. For the default option, you first find your new search engine in the list and click the menu button next to it. Select the “make default” option. After this, all of your searches will use the AI-free version.

If not then you can go with the second option – using a shortcut like “gw” (like in the image above). For this, you will have to type “gw” before your search when you want AI-free results. However, regular searches will still show AI summaries.

Also, read:

Here’s an extra tip!

You can also add “&tbs=li:1” to the URL. This will enable a “verbatim” search that makes Google use your exact search terms. This will stop Google from changing your words to synonyms or making fuzzy matches.

This new feature however does not fix other issues with Google search, and you will still see lots of SEO-optimized spam websites.

An extension to erase Google AI Search

If you don’t want to go with all the above hassle, there is an easy peasy trick to remove Google AI Overview. You can simply add an extension called “Bye Bye, Google AI” to your Chrome from the Chrome web store and it will show the necessary results only.