Photo : Shutterstock

I had a feeling something was off the other day when I was doing some Googling. As it turns out, Google has redesigned its search results page a bit, adding in favicons, a big “AD” icon for sponsored results, and shuffling around the placement of site URLs.


At the risk of sounding like the cantankerous muppets Waldorf and Statler, I don’t like it. And if you share my lack of joy about these cluttered results, it’s possible to eliminate some of the changes Google made and restore peace and order to your searches.

Screenshot : David Murphy


To get started, you’ll need an adblocker in your browser that allows you to block elements in websites. I use the mighty UBlock Origin for this, but AdBlock Plus is also fine. Navigate to your extension’s settings—wherever it is you can drop in customized filters—and enter these filters to clean up various parts of Google’s search results page:

To remove the favicon: google.com##.xA33Gc

google.com##.xA33Gc To remove the URL: google.com##.iUh30.bc.rpCHfe

google.com##.iUh30.bc.rpCHfe To remove the arrow next to the URL: google.com###am-b0 and google.com##.GHDvEf.ab_button

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’s a more easily pasteable version of those last 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 monstrosity:

Screenshot : David Murphy


To a more pleasing:



Screenshot : David Murphy


And because I’m wild, let’s get rid of those annoying videos, too. Enter this filter into your adblocker to take care of those:

google.com##g-section-with-header:has-text(/Videos/)

When you do that, your page transforms into this:


I couldn’t be happier. Now that’s a more elegant-looking search results page.