Fix Chrome prioritizing search words over visited sites in address bar
Google Chrome users who have updated the desktop version of the web browser to the latest version may have noticed a change in how Google Chrome responds to input in the browser's address bar.
Chrome users who type characters into the address bar may notice that Google Chrome may prioritize searches over visited sites after the recent update is installed.
The screenshot below shows an example where Chrome makes Googles Search the default action when you hit the Enter-key and not one of the matching sites visited in the past.
Previous versions of the browser prioritized the first matching domain name instead so that you could load it quickly by typing the first few characters of the name and hitting the Enter-key.
The change appears to affect all search engines to a degree. While you may change the default search engine of the Chrome browser to address the issue somewhat (away from Google Search to another search provider), it won't fix the issue completely.
Fixing the issue
There is only one real option at the time to revert the change and go back to the previous status quo.
Option 1: Disabling Omnibox Google Drive Document suggestions
The prioritization change of search suggestions in Google Chrome seems to be linked to a new experimental flag in Google Chrome. If you disable the feature in Chrome -- it is enabled by default -- you will notice that Chrome returns to the previous search behavior.
Here is how that is done:
- Load chrome://flags/#omnibox-drive-suggestions in the Chrome address bar.
- Change the experimental flag to disabled by activating the menu next to the preference and selecting "Disabled" from the options.
- Restart the Chrome browser.
The description suggests that it adds Google Drive search options to Chrome's address bar if Google Search is the default provider and if you are signed in to a Google account. Why that is affecting the priority of results is unclear.
Option 2: change the default search provider
It seems that you cannot resolve the issue completely when you switch search providers, but it may help.
- Load chrome://settings/ in the browser's address bar.
- Scroll down to the Search Engine section.
- Either pick one of the available solutions under "Search engine used in the address bar", or select "Manage search engines" if the search engine that you want to pick is not listed.
- Manage Search Engines lists all detected search engines. Chrome picks them up as you visit the websites of the search engines and run a search.
- My selected search engine is Startpage, but you can select any other search engine such as DuckDuckGo as well. (See: It may be time to switch to DuckDuckGo or Startpage for web search)
- Select the menu icon next to the search engine and there "make default" to make it the new default search engine in Google Chrome.
Option 3: Use the ^ character or other special characters
If you start the entry in the Chrome address bar with the ^ character and type at least three characters, results from the browsing history are returned exclusively.
You may also start with * to only return bookmark results.
Now You: Which search provider do you use currently?
I got it to work, sometimes, by disabling ‘Omnibox Bubble URL Suggestions’ on Version 88.0.4324.96 (Official Build) (64-bit). It’s not perfect but better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The following does not exist anymore, and it seems there is no corresponding setting either in the list… #omnibox-group-suggestions-by-search-vs-url
Anyone else having any clue? (It is killing my productivity, I want sometimes to throw the browser away but it is company policy)
I did theese before when happened but is now doing it again and because is already disabled and search bar changed dont know what to do is the third time this has happened
I very much appreciate the direction.
I found the suggested setting no longer exists in my version of Chrome Version 77.0.3865.90 (Official Build) (64-bit)
It seems the setting I wanted is:
#omnibox-group-suggestions-by-search-vs-url
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction though!
Wow, thank you man, beautiful. Thank you. Have I said thank you? Oh back to this lovely shit, yisss
Thank you, this was driving me crazy!
Thank you! This have been driving me absolutely nuts! I’ve been googling to find a workaround, but all I could find were unrelated bug reports from 2012. This needs to be higher!
Hi! Talking about Adress Bar X History, for me, it’s clear that Chrome does not give preference to search our history. If I search for words from a site I’ve visited for more than 20/30 days, Chrome’s address bar no longer shows the site in any way, forcing us to search for words again in the search engine (Google). I believe this happens with purpose of you visit the search page and visualize/click on ads. For me it’s terrible because several times I have difficulties finding websites that I use and it takes much more time to access them because of this functionality. Does anyone know about this?
google is evil
omg thank you so much. This has been driving me mad!!!
Thank you SO MUCH. This just started for me about a week ago (I don’t recall updating, maybe it got sick of me waiting and auto-updated) and it’s been driving me up a tree. The fix in Option 1 worked perfectly!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. :)
That change was really bugging me. Thanks for the solution. I think they were after more searches/ad revenue, even if they were accidental and annoying.
OMG… Such a tiny thing. Such an elegant (and simple; and smart) solution. Such a RELIEF. :D
XXI century problems, I guess. xD
Thank you so much. <3
Hi and THANK YOU for this article… I don’t get it, who at google thought this is great idea… so ridiculous nonsense :D
again, THANK YOU!!!
<3 THANK YOU
Okay, Thank You! Search and searched for an answer. I don’t want my URLs to search for results, I want my URL to autocomplete to websites I’ve visited, e.g. typing ama gets me to amazon.com, but with recent update it autocomplete Amazon and then searched for it on web results.
Thank you for the notice on experimental – this set the behavior back to original.
I will be subscribing as a Patron to your site.
Thanks man! It’s a very annoying feature. Why the heck they changed this where it is clear that you will most likely revisit a domain than google search again a keyword.
Thanks internet! this solved my problem :) Just found this, and I love how sites like this exist
It drove me crazy. Thank you so much.
That change was seriously the most idiotic thing someone has ever done. There is simply no fucking reason why someone at Google should think “Hey, let’s prioritize some random word a user searched that one time over A GOD DAMN WEBSITE HE HAS VISITED EVERY GOD DAMN DAY FOR THE LAST 10 DAMN YEARS.
Thanks for the fix.
And Google, please fire the one person responsible for this. Seriously, this person is driving your average IQ at Google to the negative area.
Google; pay attention – nobody wants to search for something they’ve already searched for – I’ve done the search, I’ve gotten the information that I need. I don’t want to do that same search again.
This behaviour makes no sense and is completely counter-intuitive.
THANK YOU!!
Thanks. Changed so many other settings trying to ‘fix’ this. Do people just exclusively use bookmarks or something?
Why would I want to repeat a search for the same thing? So bizarre.
Thank you so much. Have no idea why Chrome even did this. Such a frustrating and unnecessary change to its default behaviour.
Thanks Martin, very kind of you
Thanks a bazillion, man
Thanks. This bug or “feature” is REALLY annoying. I needed a fix.
Thank you so much! I’m so used to typing certain letters and getting certain sites so it really annoyed me.
Thanks!
That worked! Thank you!
Urgh, whose idea was it to put this in anyway… The user experience has really taken a toll in software development of the last few years…
A million thanks for that. Amazon = am, Guardian =g, facebook=f etc again! 10/10
Finally a solution! This was very annoying and slowing down work. Thanks!
Thanks! Really need it in last days.
This behavior is a bug. Hopefully they fix soon.
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=962599
Thank you for this guide! <3 It's exactly what I was looking for to solve this small but still slightly irritating issue
Thanks man. This new behavior was annoying me, glad someone else figured out what the issue was.
Thank you for this, I was getting really annoyed by this change, hope they will fix this soon / change to previous behaviour.
What a retarded fucking change.
I noticed the same behaviour with Vivaldi when it updated to version 2.5. It has the same setting at vivaldi://flags/#omnibox-drive-suggestions. However, disabling it does not revert the behaviour to the way it was before. Very annoying. I posted a comment on the Vivaldi forum, but no response yet.
@Martin
At least on my end, your suggested fix is not working in Chrome Stable or Dev. Default search engine is DuckDuckGo and I’ve tried it while being signed in and out of Chrome Sync. With all attempts the search suggestion was the one prioritized. Having to use the down arrow in chrome isn’t a huge deal but it’s still an extra step and somewhat disappointing. In Chrome Dev I’ve tried the flag chrome://flags/#omnibox-short-bookmark-suggestions and the search suggestion is still the first one.
Screenshot: https://i.postimg.cc/VLYZrW8y/Search-is-Frist.png
In FF I can CTRL+L, type 2-3 characters, hit ENTER, done… when looking for a bookmark
Did you visit the suggested resources? I think it only works if you have visited them (correct me if I’m wrong). Not sure how to handle this otherwise.
Sorry, I should have mentioned with visited history being saved the suggestion in the address bar is the one I’m looking for, in Chrome Dev anyway.
Without any history saved in Firefox, after typing red in the address bar, the suggestion in the address bar is reddit.com and then under that will be a list of reddit bookmarks.
I didn’t think of that, thank you. I do not save history, cache or cookies in Chrome Dev and Stable for more than a day or so.
I just wiped my history, cookies, cache, offline website data from my FF test profile and it is still giving me the bookmark I’m looking for in the address bar.
Thanks so much, this was driving me crazy all day. Changing the flag solves the autocomplete issue.
Chrome’s excellent autocomplete was an important reason for me to start using it, but I guess driving traffic to google search is more profitable than user experience.
I’m in 74.0.3729.131…is that the version of Chrome you have?
Thanks, going to give this a shot. Been driving me nuts since I’ve updated and I tried a few different flags but nothing seemed to do the trick yet.
Using Chrome Version 75.0.3770.27 (Official Build) beta (64-bit) under Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17763.475], and signed in to my Google account, I do not see the problem Martin describes. As an aside, the New Tab page Martin shows has the Huge White “Google” word which I never search from, so I set that page to 250% so I never see the Huge White “Google”.
Is there a fix for google search itself? Ever since around 2008 goog has been in a downward spiral. For instance when you search for modded bios update for a motherboard and a cnn article comes up on russian collusion or kardashian’s new ass implant.
very accurate
Which build of Chrome are you seeing this in? My version says it’s up to date and I’m not experiencing the same thing you are.
In the latest stable build: 74.0.3729.131
Are you signed in to a Google account? Maybe that plays a role?
I’ve now tried it logged in and logged out and it still has the old behavior for me.
I get sketched out by Chrome with some of their moves with Chrome. But their market share is so big and dominating the only option really is try to defeat features you don’t want at least until Google stops you from doing that too. Honestly the reason I switched to Chrome years ago is unfortunately not the reason I am forced to stick with it today.
How I can remove the annoying “visit” suggestion bar in Quantum?
You’ll need a userChrome.css file inside a folder named chrome (lowercase) that is in your profile folder. The userChrome.css can be created with Notepad, change the file extension name to .css. I have a few dozen rules in mine, I’m thinking the one you want is:
#PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .autocomplete-richlistitem[actiontype=”visiturl”]{display:none !important}
At the top of the userChrome file you will need the @namespace line — it’s required for correct functioning:
@namespace url(“http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul”);
Thanks Richard for the idea of the userChrome.css.
However not working with your code. I found this one and the suggestion bar disapeared:
@namespace url(“http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul”); /* only needed once */
/* Remove ” – Visit” or ” – Search with” bar in the drop-down */
#PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem:first-of-type[type*=”heuristic”],
#PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem:first-of-type[actiontype=”searchengine”],
#PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem:first-of-type[actiontype=”visiturl”],
#PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem:first-of-type[actiontype=”keyword”] {
display:none !important;
}
Thanks again.
Good deal, I’m glad you got it sorted out! After my earlier reply I was wondering if you meant the “Search for” bar. The bar has never bothered me but I’m going to make a note of some of the rules you posted.
Thanks!