Have you noticed things are just a little…. different in Google lately?

If you’re a frequent Google user, you may have seen “sponsored” links and ad content taking over your search results so gradually that you may not have even noticed.

You also might have seen some results generated by Gemini, the company’s signature AI (artificial intelligence) tool, at the top of your results. It produces some interesting results, particularly if you are type of Google user who looks for the answer to a question, rather than to find a website where you might find the answers.

More often than not, the ads, sponsored results, and AI content are going to the top, front, and center of your Google experience. Helping our patrons navigate the web on a daily basis, we see it more and more and it’s not just frustrating, but it makes a lot of people abandon the web as an information resource.

This is a great opportunity for the library, as we hope you will always turn to us for better information. There is always a book or another library resource we would love to help you find and explore, but it’s still often useful to do a web search.

Maybe you would like to see Google the way it used to be. Luckily, there is a little piece of code that can make it happen: a simple list of web results, just like it’s 1999 all over again!

To simplify your results without complicating your life, the folks at Tedium, a collective devoted to “The Dull Side of the Internet,” have created a website where you can do an actual Google search just like you always have, and get nice boring results like this:

Go to UDM14.org to try out Google the way it used to be – a wholesome and curious experience where you aren’t instantly pressured to buy something or see a series of ads. It’s still just a portal into Google. You enter search terms and the next page gives you Google results. UDM14.org simply adds a little extra HTML (the code that the World Wide Web runs on) to give you results without all of the add-ons.

There are no big banner ads or local shopping suggestions. There are no AI guesses at what you are looking for. It is a blissfully plain experience. Even if only for nostalgia’s sake, we highly recommend giving it a try.