Most people agree that Google has gotten worse at showing useful results. The off-target search results are getting more and more common, and we can only lay part of the blame on the results being cluttered with AI-generated junk and human-generated SEO-bait (content that is created to attract links from other websites). How can you get around this? First, understand that Google is not the only search engine out there. Others, like DuckDuckGo and Kagi, may be better at giving you what you’re actually looking for. If you’re using Google here’s how to turn on verbatim mode in Google searches:
- • On the search results page, look for a menu that says Tools. It may be on the far right side of the screen.
- • On desktop, look on the far right side of the page, to the right of any buttons suggesting related searches or different categories of search (images, shopping, etc.).
- • On mobile, underneath the search box you’ll see those “images, shopping…” categories. Put your finger on those words and swipe to the left; at the end of the row, on the far right, you’ll see Search tools.
- • After tapping Tools or Search tools, you’ll see a drop-down labeled All results. Click or tap on this, and you’ll see the option Verbatim. That Verbatim feature under Tools is the key to searching for the words you actually typed in.
We can’t promise anything about the quality of the pages you’ll land on, but at least you’ll get a more targeted selection.
