Google adds web as a search filter to its search engine
Google is used by everyone and anyone to navigate the internet, so much so that it could be considered a monopoly. In recent years, Google search results have been increasingly enriched with multiple search results, e.g. videos matching the search query, images and other snippets. As of this week, it is now possible to limit search results to web-only results, displaying the familiar results that most users have come to know Google by. In this blog post, we take a look at this filter and how you can use it in your search.
When you start building your website hosting and take your first steps in the online world, you will soon have come across the term SEO and SEA to promote your website on the web.
This stands for search engine optimization and search engine advertising, and with Google being the largest search engine in the western world, this is practically unthinkable for anyone who wants to see visitors return to their website. Google is not standing still and has taken many measures in recent years to bring down poorly ranked websites and provide a mixed result for almost every search. In the form of YouTube videos, images and other media. However, this can be seen as annoying by users if they only search for websites with longer content, which is possible again with the latest update.
Where can the web filter be selected in Google?
The web filter can be easily selected in the list below. On mobile, it may already be available without having to select "More", or you can search under "More" in the next place:
Search results will switch to web-only results after selecting this filter, meaning they will only show on websites. However, they may still contain sponsored results or advertising.
It will look like this, for example:
You now have a list of website URLs on the screen, instead of Google results as you know them from search. You can still see YouTube results and other results here, but basically this is now displayed as before.
Will this be used much?
Google has made numerous updates in recent years, mainly to improve the quality of search results, but not everyone agrees. If you have a website yourself, you will have to deal with the fact that your results will change here too. Every website owner has experience of this.
And knows the tense wait for the Google updates. What the latest Google updates have mainly brought as a change is the crowding out of the smaller websites that favor many search terms over the big parties and social media platforms like Reddit. Many content websites run by smaller teams or a few individuals have seen a slump in monthly traffic of around 30%. Of course, this isn't true for everyone, and the last update penalized AI content and low-quality content in particular.
But this doesn't always seem to have been the case in the mid-range. The web is made to be independent and not just controlled by a few large parties.
When the big social media channels and their results are favored, a user often stays on one platform all the time. Will you take advantage of this to limit search results to web results? Let us know if you do!
