How do I tell Google search to always exclude certain sites?

Reaper

One thing that always annoys me in my search results is when they are full of other peoples searches in other search engines, so I'd prefer to exclude them if I can.

I know I can exclude them as a one off. For example if I want to search for "MSE" I can type in something like:
MSE -dealtime -kelkoo -shopgenie -pricerunner (etc...)

...but how do I tell it to always do that without typing them in each time? There is no option to store it in Preferences or Advanced Search and the new Custom Search only lets you add sites, not deduct them. I feel sure there must be a way but I can't think of one. Am I missing something obvious?

Mr_Squiddy

Basically there is no way to do this in Google. The only way to do this that I can think of would be to write yourself a little web page (probably requiring some Javascript) into which you could enter your search terms. The page would then call Google's search engine automatically adding to the search parameters the sites you want to exclude.

Reaper

That's a thought. I could store it locally and use it as my homepage. Better brush up on my Javascript. Surprised Google don't offer any way to remember search preferences though.

Mr_Squiddy

Reaper wrote:

That's a thought. I could store it locally and use it as my homepage. Better brush up on my Javascript. Surprised Google don't offer any way to remember search preferences though.

I don't think it is in their interests to allow you to permanently exclude certain websites.

sra

You could build your own search engine with one of the sites mentioned here.

If you use Firefox, you can use Customize Google which will give you a 'filter' link to remove sites from future searches (see the demo)

tobyosbourn

sra wrote:

You could build your own search engine with one of the sites mentioned here.

If you use Firefox, you can use Customize Google which will give you a 'filter' link to remove sites from future searches (see the demo)

Handy wee tool is that.

Reaper

sra, the search builders mentioned all seem to be creating lists of sites to search, whereas I want to search the whole web with certain exclusions. However the filter part of Customize Google looks just the job. Thanks.

sra

Reaper wrote:

sra, the search builders mentioned all seem to be creating lists of sites to search, whereas I want to search the whole web with certain exclusions. However the filter part of Customize Google looks just the job. Thanks.

They all work differently and have different options. Swicki lets you search the whole web and remove sites you don't want when you are logged in. If you are not logged in, you get a regular email saying that people have suggested whatever site is removed and you can do it then

sra

Here's one I just built - leaving the options to only search certain places blank.

Hover over the results - Being logged in I get the option to actually delete results rather than just suggest a deletion.

I'm remembering the disadvantage now - You can't choose to search within the UK. Not sure if that's true of the new Google search, haven't tried it yet

Tils

Just ban the IP address of that server using a hosts file...basically set the domain and link it to www.yahoo.com's IP address. So when your computer trys to go to that domain it resolves the name back to yahoo...basically making it impossible for that PC to ever go to that site unless you remove the hosts file entry.

Idea is like this.. http://hostsfile.mine.nu/

Reaper

Sorry to drag up an old thread but I finally came up with a solution as none of the other ideas quite worked (Customise Google came the closest but does not work in IE and filtering seems intermittent even in Firefox).

I made a page myself that does everything I wanted. So far it only works with IE - I'm not sure why Firefox doesn't run the Javascript but I'm a novice at it and will figure it out eventually (any Javascript experts out there?)

I put some starting exclusions in but it will remember your preferences if you want to change them.

You can find it here. See what you think.