[violet13]

Unfortunately, this throws the baby out with the bathwater - you also lose all the useful non-AI widgets, like calculator, unit conversions, instant weather, maps, etc.

There are other tools for that, but I confess that I've gotten used to defaulting to the address bar for random queries like that - the browser is always open.

[shortformblog]

Creator here. All you have to do to get those things back is just hit the “all” tab on your results, or if you use a search with "&udm=14" added, just keep the original Google around as a second search. I personally use “g” for full-fat Google and “gw” for Web only.

This obviously doesn’t solve every problem with Google, and it cuts in some ways. Obviously, if you are searching for, say, when a restaurant is open, you are going to want to use the knowledge panels. The goal of this is to make up for those situations where you need a simplified view, but Google has intentionally made it hard to reach that view.

[violet13]

My point is that when you have it configured the usual way, you can type "2 + 2 =" in the address bar and get the result. Which, you know, is sort of convenient. Or "weather mountain view ca", or whatever.

If you change your default search to udm=14, you lose that. Sure, you can click around on the now-useless results page to get back to standard Google and get the answer, but that's friction that wasn't there before. The parameter doesn't just kill the AI stuff.

[shortformblog]

I mean, I absolutely understand your point. I guess I would push back and say that the friction of not having easily accessible web results is much larger, and given that this was the original intended purpose of Google, it feels like there should be a method where that takes precedence.

Going back to the “All” page is a single click on a button that never moves. The “Web” mode is two clicks, minimum, each time, and the link is often never in the same place, making it difficult to get muscle memory. You are basically deciding between two levels of frustration, and for many users, the latter wins. In your case, it sounds like the former does.

I absolutely do not think in your case, you should make udm14 your home page. There may be a UX solution that could be put in place here, so the original search is still accessible from the site if you want it. But for people whose goal is to find information from websites, this is a change that may absolutely be welcomed by them.

Let’s not let it be lost here that the real problem is that Google arguably ruined its knowledge panels by treating the AI results like one.