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I'd like to stop specific search terms (such as "gaming", "newgrounds", and "knowyourmeme") from appearing in my Google Search suggestions, since these terms tend to distract me from what I'm actually searching for. Is it possible to filter out specific terms from Google's automatic search suggestions?

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You don't want to disable Google's suggestions altogether? – Mr Lister Aug 27 '12 at 19:08
No, I want to keep seeing suggestions that are relevant to certain topics (for instance, computer programming.) This is why I'd like to filter out some (but not all) search suggestions. – Anderson Green Aug 27 '12 at 20:12

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If you use Firefox, you can open about:config and edit the keyword.URL preference. Set its value to https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&q=-gaming -newgrounds -knowyourmeme. Don't forget the trailing space! This will cause URL bar search to apply the filters you specify.

Still in Firefox, you can create a bookmark to the URL https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&q=-gaming -newgrounds -knowyourmeme %s and assign a keyword to it (by right-clicking the bookmark and clicking Properties). Let's say you assign the g keyword. Now if you type g my search in the URL bar, you will perform a search on "my search" with the aforementioned filters (the %s gets replaced with your query).

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Would it be better to use Google Custom Search, since it works on every browser and can do the same thing (if the list of included and omitted terms is edited for a custom search engine)? – Anderson Green Aug 31 '12 at 19:06
Also, do you know whether the solution that you suggested would filter the automatic search suggestions (as well as the search results)? – Anderson Green Aug 31 '12 at 19:09
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I imagine it would filter the search suggestions as well, since -exclusion filters the term "exclusion" from your search. – Phong Aug 31 '12 at 19:47
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I'm pretty sure Google doesn't give you access to or control over this kind of thing precisely because it would diminish the ability Google currently has to use targeted advertisements and other things on/with you, which is fundamental in pretty much everything Google does.

However, if you have a specific list of such terms that you know you will (usually) want omitted, I would suggest making a text document with "-term1 -term2 ..." listed out, for the entire list, and copy-pasting that to the end of any search you do.

Depending on your browser, there may be an option to automatically add text to searches (or have default search text to which you would simply add your query text), in which case use this feature instead of having a text document.

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It might be possible to automatically add the omitted terms (for example, "-minecraft -facebook -wikipedia") using a web browser extension (or perhaps a Greasemonkey userscript.) – Anderson Green Aug 30 '12 at 2:42
It might be better to simply create a custom search engine: google.com/cse – Anderson Green Aug 30 '12 at 2:55
up vote 0 down vote

-exclude

Add a dash (-) before a word to exclude all results that include that word.

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