Setting Google to Return Recent Search Results by Default
I’m often only interested in the search results that are fairly recent – for example, if I’m looking for “great apps for iphone”, I don’t want results from 2007. But if you perform a search in Google, there’s no simple way to restrict it’s time query except for mucking about with the “search tools” options, which adds clicks and time and cognitive load to a search.
Fortunately I’ve just found a clever way to do it in Chrome (Mac), thanks to PigeonLab.
If you open up Chrome’s preferences, you’ll find a section that allows you to add new search engines.
Once you open that up, if you scroll to the bottom, you’ll find this box:
Then, follow PigeonLab’s instructions:
- Add a name for your new engine, a keyword to use to trigger the use of this engine, and the following URL
- http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=qdr:y&tbo=1
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This URL is set to only return results from the last year. You can also use the following to set your preferred time frame. Just replace the “tbs=qdr:y” between the ampersands in the URL with one of the time frame codes from the list below.
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&tbs=rltm:1 [real time results] &tbs=qdr:s [past second] &tbs=qdr:n [past minute] &tbs=qdr:h [past hour] &tbs=qdr:d [past 24 hours (day)] &tbs=qdr:w [past week] &tbs=qdr:m [past month]
- Then click somewhere else in the pop-up window to unset the focus from your new engine.
- Once your new engine is no longer highlighted it will be moved into alphabetical order in the list
- Find your new engine and hover over it, a blue “Make Default” button should appear near the right hand side of the engine URL. Â Click the button to make this engine the default and don’t forget to click the save button at the bottom of the pop-up window.
- BOOM! all your searches in the omnibox should now return only results from the last 12 months.