Google has one of the simplest websites on the web. However, the website has many options for customizing the search results and appearance. Website owners and SEO agencies focus on improving their site’s position on the search results page. For you as a general user, you can customize Google search results page for improved productivity.
How to Customize Google Search Results Page?
You can change some of the below options from Google Search settings page while you may need to login to your account for customizing other options.
1. Change Number of Results Per Page
By default you will see 10 results on a desktop search results.
- Open Google.com and click on the “Settings” option at the bottom right corner.
- Select “Search settings” option search preferences page.
- Alternatively, you can directly open the Google preferences URL on the address bar.
- Choose the number by moving the slider under “Results per page” section. You can set the results per page as 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 100. As indicated under the slider, 10 results per page will load faster while the speed will be slow when you increase the numbers.
Scroll down and click on the “Save” button to save your settings.
Google always change the search appearance on the phones. At this point, you can view more results on the same page by tapping the “More results” button on smartphones.
2. Open Search Results in New Tab
By default, Google will open the search results on the same page. This will be embarrassing when you want to open few more results. The only option is to press the back button to go back to the search results page again and click another search result. You can easily avoid this hassle by viewing the search results in a new tab page when you open.
Scroll down in the search settings page and find “Where results open” section. Enable the check box that shows “Open each selected result in a new browser window”. Though this text wrongly indicates to open the result in a new window, it will open in a new tab on the same window.
3. Turn Safe Search On or Off
If you share your computer with your family especially kids, then it is necessary to disable the explicit content appearing on the search results.
- When you are in the search settings page, enable “Turn on SafeSearch” check box under the “SafeSearch filters” section.
- You can also lock the SafeSearch option so that your kid or other person can’t change the settings. However, you need to login with your Google account in order to lock the safe search option in search results.
On Google Search app in smartphones, tap on the “More” option on the bottom. Navigate to “Settings > General > Search settings” section. Select, Filter explicit results” option under “SafeSearch Filters” section.
4. Change Search Language
Google will offer search language based on your regional location. However, you can change the language from the settings page.
- When you are in the settings page, click on the “Languages” section in the sidebar.
- Choose your preferred search language and save the changes.
- You can also choose the language in mobile app on the settings page.
- The chosen language will be your default language in search results. However, you can also show results in additional languages by clicking the “Edit” link under “Currently showing search results in” section.
5. Using Advanced Google Search
In our earlier article, we have explained how to use symbols and characters in Google search. You can also filter the search results by following the below instructions:
- Click on the “Setting” option on the lower right corner on Google.com website.
- Choose “Advanced search” option to Google Advanced Search page.
- You can use the settings to find the pages with exact word, phrases, numbers ranging from, etc.
- It is also possible to narrow down the search results by last updated date, file type, user rights, etc.
6. Filtering Search Results
Advanced search results can help you to filter the search results. However, it is saved on the settings that each time you need to change to modify it. Alternatively, you can filter the search results on the fly when you are in the results page.
- Click on the “Tools” option in the search result to open addition filters.
- Filter based on the time to get results based on time like past hour, past 24 hours, etc.
- Click on “All results” option to select all results or verbatim results.
7. Use I’m Feeling Lucky Button
Some of you will always click the first result on the search results page. In this case, you don’t need to go to the search results page at all. Open Google.com, type your query and click on the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
This will take you to the website of the first result without going to the search results page. However, there are two problems with this – most of the time the first result is not always accurate and this button is not available in mobile apps. In addition, you can directly use the address bar without using the search box or you can choose the auto prediction to go to the search results page.
Remember, this I’m Felling Lucky button by pass the advertisements shown on the results page thus causing billions of dollar loss for Google.
8. Login to View Your Site’s Rank
If you are a website owner, then login to Google account. Now, open Google.com website and search for a query that you want to check the rank of your website. Google will show the card with the details of your site’s ranking for the searched keyword.
9. Control Search History
When you are in Google.com website, click on the “Settings > History” option on the bottom. You will see the option for “Signed-out search activity is on” is enabled by default. Even when you are not signed into your account, Google sets the cookie on the browser to track your search history. Based on the history, you will get customized results and recommendations.
If you are a privacy lover, simply disable this option to stop tracking. In addition, you can also login to your Google account and control the history options across all devices that use your account.
10. Google Voice Search
Google voice search is increasing with everyone of us having a smartphone. There are some tricks you can use to quickly use the voice search. Open your Google mobile app and go to “More > Settings > Voice”. Select or enable the following options:
- Language – select your language for voice search.
- Spoken results – after searching Google will read out a sentence about the searched result.
- Voice search on Bluetooth devices – use your Bluetooth headset to do voice search.
- “Ok Google” hotword – enable this to say “Ok Google” to open voice search without touching the voice button.
Similar to mobile app, you can also enable the read out option for voice search on desktop web search by going on the preference settings page. This will also read the text on the results page from the cards shown from Wikipedia and other reliable resources.
11. Google Image Search
On desktop, you can go to Google Images site and do image search by uploading the image or entering the image URL.
However, you can do the image search on the same Google Search mobile app.
This will open Google Lens to capture the picture using your smartphone’s camera. You can instantly search with the image to get relevant results.
12. Disable Video Preview in Mobile
On Google Search mobile app, go to “More > Settings > General > Autoplay video previews” option. Here you can change the settings to preview the videos in Google search always, never or only on Wi-Fi. We recommend you to select either “Wi-Fi Only” or “Never” option to save the mobile data usage.
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