Forget videos, shopping, and AI-generated summaries. Google’s latest change helps you filter search results to show a plain, simple list of web pages.
What Has Google Changed?
In May 2024, Google introduced a new way to filter your search results. Alongside other ways to filter by content type, you may now choose “Web.”
Since March 2001, Google has presented content type options at the top of its search results. These divide the results into common categories like News, Images, and Videos. At the time, it also introduced a default “All” category thatshows a large variety of contentbesides the standard search results:
This made the results page look more like a cut-down encyclopedia than the list of URLs it had previously been.
The new Web filter harks back to the past, stripping away details like “People also ask”, featured snippets, and knowledge panels. It presents a long list of web pages in a consistent style, with a small thumbnail for each where appropriate:
How to Access Web Results on Desktop
Google changes the way it displays its content type filters based on your search results. As a result, you may see the “Web” option in slightly different places.
How to Access Web Results on Mobile
Webresults can still include content that isn’t HTML, like PDFs. They can also include content like videos, although these results will present the page containing the video, in the same format as every other result.
