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Google launched its revamped search user interface last week, and there’s no question that search engine results pages are a little busier and a little more cluttered than they were before.
You used to click a button to make search options pop out:
Now they are suggested (you have to expand them though), along with different content types. Opening all of the tabs thickens the left-hand rail:
This is proving too busy for some folks, and Google’s help forums are ablaze with complaints like this one from sanjitsingh92:
“Please Let us have the Option to remove the “Everything Sidebar”….I have been using the simple clean google for years.”
Fortunately, those enterprising bloggers over at The Next Web offer this link to help people who despise change, or just despise Google’s UI changes, revert back to pre-UI overhaul, which some call Classic Google.
Seriously, this one link will bring you back to the old glory days of more mundane search options: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all. Bookmark it.
I personally like the new changes, appreciating the new and different options to slice and dice search results.
But some people like the old results, and Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan noted that Google has no plans to offer users the option to switch between old and new, which I think is wrong.
For a company that prides itself on providing users’ choice — they even created a Data Liberation Front to let users move their data in and out of Google’s Web services — this is remarkably closed.
The only reason I can think of is that Google doesn’t want to be burdened with keeping the old UI updated and fresh.
In any case, use the link I provided. It will work until, well, it doesn’t.