Is there a way to disable or remove the "Results for Similar Searches" in Google results? I know you can use the setting "Verbatim," but then you lose the spelling correction, etc. Basically, I wish the similar results didn't take up half the first page of results.
Is there a Google setting, userscript, browser add-on, etc that accomplishes this?
Best Answer
As far as I know, there is no way to disable the "results for similar searches" (at the time of writing this answer), but I've managed to hide the "similar results" using AdBlock Plus. Add the following filter rules:
What this does is to hide elements on google.com that have class attributes that I know are associated with this "feature".
Caveats with this method:
This merely hides the "similar results"; it does not force Google to feed you additional results to replace the hidden "results". For searches that trigger "results for similar searches", you'll still only see ~3-7 actual results on the first page, rather than the 10-100 that you've specified in your search settings. With that said, half a page of results is better than a full page that's half garbage, in my experience.
This method will, unintentionally, break other elements on google.com if and only if they have the same class attributes. In fact, the exception line
@@google.com/search?*tbs=sbi$elemhideis included because without it, the filter hides the "Pages that include matching images" block in "Search by image".To anyone who come across this answer: I'd appreciate links to pages that are broken by this filter so that I can make it better.
Conversely, Google can break this workaround without notice if they change the class attribute strings associated with the "similar results". One can only hope that whatever they change to are unique enough that this method remains practical, per Caveat 2.