Google has updated its help documentation page on AI Overviews to tell searchers how to show only web results in its search results (not show AI Overviews, videos, image, etc), plus how to give feedback on the AI Overviews Google provides. This obviously comes based on the backlash Google has received on some of these AI Overviews.
If you compare the help documentation page today to the old one, you will see Google added two sections. Here are the two sections Google added:
Show only web links in Google Search
AI Overviews are a core Google Search feature, like knowledge panels. Features can’t be turned off. However, you can select the Web filter after you perform a search. This filter displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews.
Give feedback
If you get an AI Overview that you feel is unsafe, not helpful, inaccurate, or bad for any other reason, you can let us know by submitting feedback. Your feedback will help this experience improve.
- At the top right of the overview, click Menu
.
- Tap Feedback.
- Select the element of the AI overview your feedback is about.
- Select the feedback category.
- Optional: Add a description.
- Click Send.
Hat tip to:
(NEW) Google has updated its help documents about AI Overviews and added a section Show only web links in Google Search
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) May 25, 2024
This new section mentions use of Web filter.
"However, you can select the Web filter after you perform a search. This filter displays only text-based links… pic.twitter.com/1MeRuj4uEs
This makes sense based on all the backlash recently about AI overviews and how easy it is to find bad AI Overviews. Here are some of the articles from the weekend on this:
- Google AI Overviews under fire for giving dangerous and wrong answers, Search Engine Land
- Glue pizza and eat rocks: Google AI search errors go viral, BBC
- "Google is dead." Google's desperate bid to chase Microsoft's search AI has led to it recommending eating rocks, Windows Central
- For some reason, Google lets AI "answer" medical questions in "Search", The Decoder
- Glue on pizza? Google’s AI Overview shares wacky answers, Silicon Republic
- Google AI makes string of errors after relying on joke websites, Telegraph
- Google AI Overview Results Spread Conspiracy Theories, Pizza Glue Recipe, Rolling Stone
- Google AI Overviews keep making mistakes in 'isolated examples', 9to5Google
- Google AI Overviews Search Errors Cause Furor Online, New York Times
- Google criticized as AI Overview makes errors, like saying President Obama is Muslim, CNBC
- Google Is Playing a Dangerous Game With AI Search, The Atlantic
- Google promised a better search experience — now it’s telling us to put glue on our pizza, The Verge
- Google says the 'vast majority' of AI Overviews are good, 9to5Google
- Google Search Is Now a Giant Hallucination, Gizmodo
- Google's AI Overviews Being Laughed at by CEO of Perplexity, Business Insider
- Google's AI search tool produces flubs and fabrications, QZ
- Google’s AI faces social media mockery after viral errors, NBC News
- Google’s AI Keeps Hallucinating. Does Anyone Care?, Bloomberg
- Google’s AI Overview Appears To Produce Misleading Answers, Forbes
- Google’s AI search tool tells users to ‘eat rocks’ for your health, Financial Times (Sub)
- Shut it down: Google's AI search results are beyond terrible, Android Authority
- The Reason That Google's AI Suggests Using Glue on Pizza Shows a Deep Flaw With Tech Companies' AI Obsession, Futurism
- What Is Google's AI Overviews, and Why Is It Getting Things Wrong?, CNET
- Why Google’s AI search might recommend you mix glue into your pizza, Washington Post
- 17 cringe-worthy Google AI answers demonstrate the problem with training on the entire web, Tom's Hardware
- Google is in damage control mode following AI Overviews fiasco, Android Police
- Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search, The Verge
- Google’s AI Is Churning Out a Deluge of Completely Inaccurate, Totally Confident Garbage, Futurism
- Can you trust Google AI search results? The internet is unconvinced., Mashable
- In our tests Google's AI Overviews were faster, more bizarre, and sometimes just fine, Mashable
- Google’s ‘AI Overviews’ advises adding glue to pizza sauce, lists ‘health benefits’ of tobacco for tweens, NY Post
- Users Report Google’s AI Overview Thinks Tons of Fictional Characters Are Gay, Them
- What are Google’s AI Overviews good for?, TechCrunch
Forum discussion at X.
