Advanced Search Query Builder: The Easy and Quick Way to do Selective Internet Searches

 

Ever wanted to get rid of those pesky AI summaries that seem to appear nowadays every time you do any kind of internet search ? 

Want to bypass AI and 'do your own thing' with a more focussed advanced online search ? Or switch the search engine you're using at the touch of a button ? 

Fed up with following up links that turn out to have expired years ago ?

Now you can tailor your searches efficiently - and without needing to remember the exact query syntax to use....or even opening a new window.

To find out how, just read on…..

Background

Internet searching has changed a lot over the last few years, due largely to the automatic insinuation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents into everything but the most basic searches by the all the major search engine providers.

There is no doubt that those AI summaries which now appear in response to most of our queries can be very useful, particularly for those who know little about a particular subject to start with, and aren’t quite sure where to start looking.

But they aren't always needed, and they can clutter up the results presentation - and slow things down a lot. 

They are also environmentally wasteful - an AI summary will use 10x more power than an 'index only' search, consume more cooling water, and take up a lot of extra server time. 

If you already know what you’re looking for, and want to narrow down your search accordingly, it is both a time-saver, and eco-friendly to dispense with them.  Automatic AI involvement in a search also has the disadvantage that the results presented in the summary will be dependent on the AI algorithms the agent’s LLM used to select them, and this may well exclude items that would have been of interest to the user.

The other issue I struggled with before developing the app was the need to switch manually between search engines, and then re-run searches with the additional restrictions repeatedly to narrow things down to the entries I really wanted to see. If focussing on items within a single site, having to enter the full URL each time was also a nuisance.

After a particularly irritating series of AI interventions and problems of this sort when searching recently, I decided to try an advanced search for myself manually, but quickly realised I’d forgotten the precise syntax to use for the various restrictions I wanted to apply. I also wanted to see if there was any way to suppress AI summaries that appear at the start of most search outputs. 

The other thing I wanted to make a bit easier was switching between search engines. Why would I want to do this, you might ask ? 

The answer is that not all search engines are the same. Google in particular has always been very retentive of any indication of how its algorithms work, and it has always been more selective than other engines. It's also notorious for being slower to index newly posted sites than the others. We also know that in May 2025 it had a radical overhaul of its selection policy and junked many of its existing index entries (including both my own website and blog, which it has never re-indexed!). Google will also, on occasions, actively suppress items it doesn't want you to see - I caught it recently omitting an item from another provider - I happened to be looking for this particular website, so I twigged what was going on, but would probably have missed the omission otherwise. 

Most other sites are much less selective and are also quicker to pick up new material. Thus there was every need to have an easy choice of engine available, depending on what you were looking for and when it was posted.

Realising I was unlikely to be alone in suffering from these search-related problems (you try remembering all the query command lines if you’ve not done an advanced search for 6 months!), I thought it would also be worthwhile to spend a bit of time putting together a simple HTML tool to simplify the process…and avoid having to 're-learn' query syntax every time.

And here’s the result….the Advanced Internet Search Query Builder app......for browsers everywhere....

What is it and what does it do ?

Firstly, please note that the query builder utility app pre-supposes you actually want to restrict your search in at least some way – there’s not much point in using it otherwise, although it will still save you some time if you want to compare outputs from a range of engines, or just suppress AI summary output.

The app I've generated to do the job comes in the form of a simple and very small HTML file which will run on any internet browser. It allows you to specify several search restrictions using a simple-to-use main screen display and selection boxes (see Figure 1).

Since advanced queries are designed to be more specific than basic ones, and will therefore reduce the number of links presented, you'll get a more focussed series of links to work with. You can also effectively switch off automatic AI summaries and thus retain more control of the search process.  You can add as many restrictions as you wish via the selection box system, and some of these have dropdown menus where appropriate.  A particularly useful one is to restrict by date - entering a date in the recent past will eliminate all outdated links, and there are plenty of them out there!

You can also select one from a choice of six of the most popular search engines for your search, and the dropdown menu means it’s easy to switch for comparison displays of the same search, which will all appear in different windows. Since the program also displays the ‘raw’ search command string that will be submitted, this can be copied, and either modified by the user to modify the search or, indeed, submitted to a different engine of their choice which is not on the list.

How Do I use the Software ?

1)     1) The software is available for download as a single HTML file. It was designed for use on a Windows pc, but should be accessible via most browsers on tablets or mobile phones.

2)     2) To use it, first download the file ‘Advanced Search Compiler.html’ from the list of files presented using this link (if you don't want to go to the trouble of downloading the file, you can run the search direct from my website).

3)     3) Right click the file from Explorer and select the ‘Open With’ option. Select your browser of choice – the HTML file is not browser-specific.

4)     4) Once the file opens, you’ll see a screen similar to that shown in Figure 1.

5)     5) The only box that requires a user entry is 'Search Term'. Enter your search item of interest. (There is no size limit for this but bear in mind a long search term is more likely to induce AI participation if you don't actively switch it off, and thus will likely also increase the number of ‘hits’). The Search Engine selection box must also be occupied – this is set to Google by default and can be modified by the drop-down menu, which allows selection of one from a choice of 5 other principal search engines. All other boxes are optional, and are there to refine your search if required. If you leave any or all of the other boxes empty, the app will just not apply those restrictions.

6)     6) Drop-down menus are also provided for Date Range Selection, Filetype and selection of the Search Engine you wish to use.

7)     7) When you have completed your selection, check the compiled query display at the bottom of your screen – this shows the query as it will be passed to the search engine you’ve chosen when you initiate the query.

8)     8) When you've checked your entries, click the ‘Open in Search Engine’ button. This should open a new window and pass the query to the relevant search engine which will (hopefully!) then present the results of your search. You can then refine the search if required or exit the program. Please note that you don't need to submit the query yourself - the app does it for you.

Some Useful Hints and Tips

1)     *  If you wish to look for a particular string in the Title field of each entry only, you can add the following at the end of your search term in the search item box:  'intitle:abcdef'. This will look for the term in the title only and is distinct from the exact match term, as this will search for matches in the complete entry and not just the title. 

2)     *  If you wish to modify the compiled query yourself, or use it for a different search engine, you can copy it and transfer it to another browser window to modify as desired before running it.

3)      * If you plan to use this software frequently, why not bookmark the URL in your favourites list for ease of access? To do this, simply star the entry at the top of your screen after you’ve loaded the program into your browser e.g  for a file run from the Windows downloads directory, the URL would look like this:      file:///C:/Users/Administrator/Downloads/HTML/Search%20Engine%202.html (bookmarking an offline file is a useful trick if you've not used it before, and should work with any file compatible with browser execution, e.g. .pdfs)

4)      * Another advantage of the app is that you do not need to specify the complete URL for a website if you wish to restrict results to that site only. Simply enter a shortened version of the URL and the search engine should find it. e.g for Wikipedia only items, enter ‘wikipedia.org’ and the system will fill in the rest of the URL for you.

  *     *  Although it may not always be possible to switch off AI intervention completely, you can usually suppress the AI summary output by adding 'AI' to the exclusions box. This should eliminate the summary from the display, although the results may still be 'curated' by the AI agent the engine is using. As already indicated, the shorter your search term, the less likely AI will be invoked.

         *  You can add more than one term to the exclusions box e.g. entering the string 'AI terminal windows' in the box should omit the words 'terminal' and 'windows' from the search and should also eliminate the AI summary display.

5)      * As discussed, if you don’t want to go to the trouble of downloading the HTML file to your desktop or tablet/phone, you can run the same program online directly from my website search page.

         * Most of us just use Google as our principal search engine. As already discussed, there is a hidden problem with this that many are unaware of. In May 2025, Google changed their indexing policy to a much more selective regime and had a 'clear out' of many existing links. Google are also notoriously slow at indexing new sites and can be extremely choosy as to which ones they index. This policy has not been replicated by any of the other search engines to my knowledge. The upshot of this is that by using Google exclusively you may miss relevant links, and will almost certainly not see the full range of very recent websites or other recent postings. This is why I've included five other engines in the menu of options. Don't take my word for it.....try a comparison for yourself - you may be surprised at the results.

Happy Searching……

 First published 3.9.26; Revised 20.10.26

Figure 1: Main screen