#Google adds “web” filter to only show text-based links in Google Search results
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Google said the filter appears on the top of the results page alongside other filters.
Web filter. You can find the web filter next to the other filters in the menu. Sometimes that means it is on the same line as the video filter, news filter and so on. Other times it is under the “more” menu.
Here are some screenshots Google posted on X:
More. Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan apparently championed creation of Web filter. He wrote, “Since I joined Google, I’ve just been a boy standing in front of the search group asking it to love a Web filter. So happy to see it’s arrived – congrats to the hard-working team on this project that through their own efforts made it a reality!”
He added, “We’ve launched a new “Web” filter that shows only text-based links, just like you might filter to show other types of results, such as images or videos. The filter appears on the top of the results page alongside other filters or as part of the “More” option, rolling out today and tomorrow globally. We’ve added this after hearing from some that there are times when they’d prefer to just see links to web pages in their search results, such as if they’re looking for longer-form text documents, using a device with limited internet access, or those who just prefer text-based results shown separately from search features. If you’re in that group, enjoy!”
Google tested this in the form of “web results” back in February of this year.
Why we care. Now if you want to remove forums, videos, news, images or other forms of search results you can. You can just filter by text-links, and go back to the pre-2007 universal search days.
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.
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