Are you tired of Google as you see it with all its experiments and updates? Do you want to get things under control? Then you may want to try any (or all) of the following Google search modifications:
1. Google Informative
Informative Google Search is a FireFox search plugin that takes advantage of Google’s sidebar options to make the results, well, more “informative:
- Related search suggestions (to refine your search);
- Page previews (doesn’t work with Google Instant Previews).
Get it here
2. Google “Without Wikipedia” Search
Tired of seeing Wikipedia pages on top of almost any search results? Try using this plugin for a change: it removes all Wikipedia pages from SERPs. Probably not the best idea to use to evaluate your SERPs competition but can work great for random searches.
Get it here
3. Google De-Personalized Results
This plugin by Joost de Valk prevents you from seeing personalized search results, when searching from your browser’s search box. In Firefox, this plugin also adds suggest functionality.
4. Google I am Feeling Lucky Search
Do you want to land on any page you are (most probably) aiming at without any need to care about the actual URL. Install “Google I am Feeling Lucky” search plugin.
OK, it won’t probably replace your existing default search (because for us, marketers, the Google search results page is by far more important than the actual top result) but it would be an additional help for your productivity.
I am sure someone has already created this plugin but I wasn’t able to find a link, so I went ahead and generated it myself:
Get it here (the second one in the list)
5. Google “by Name” Search
If the above one seems a bit too extreme for you (as it always bypasses Google SERPs to get you straight to the top result), you can try this one. It will only by-pass SERPs for branded search queries (where the user’s intent is more or less clear).
For example,
- iPad
- mcdonalds
- overstock
And this is the other one I had to generate myself:
Get it here (the first one in the list)
Note: for all queries that return Wikipedia page on top, it will bring you to the Wikipedia page (instead of SERPs as well) despite the fact that these are NOT branded queries, for example:
- disease
- seo
- shakespeare
Any other Google search plugins you can think of?
