Extension hides some legitimate search results

[Pablo87996]

Currently, this extension only looks for AI Overview titles inside h1 and h2 tags. But now, the title is also appearing within the tag strong.

[medovina]

I think this might be the same bug as #31, which reports that an AI overview in the middle of the search results might not be blocked.

[Pablo87996]

Hi. I saw your last comment in issue #31, and apparently, that is a different problem. In that case, the AI overview appears in a tag h2, while in this case, it appears in a tag strong. Could you verify what tag is appearing to you?

[medovina]

Hi Pablo,

it's true that the words "AI Overview" appear inside a strong tag. However, these words also appear in an H2 tag higher up in the DOM. See the screenshot below. The current version of this extension (the code in master, not in the 1.5 release) should find this H2 tag and block this inline AI Overview result.

So I believe that this bug is a duplicate - the strong tag is actually not new. How did you install this extension? If you install it from the code in master (not the 1.5 release on the Firefox site) then I think it will block the result you described above.

[Pablo87996]

Hi Adam,

You are right. I have not noticed the H2 tag higher up in the DOM. Currently, I am using the version 1.5 from Firefox. I have just downloaded the code in master, and it solves the problem. However, it is removing all the results above the AI Overview container.

Search results with extension enabled

Search results with extension disabled

[medovina]

Hi Pablo,

I can't reproduce the problem you reported. For me, the query [how to create browser extension in javascript] doesn't produce any AI overview results, even with the extension disabled. (Of course, Google results may vary over time and also depending on where you are, so there is no guarantee that you and I will see the same results.)

I just tried another query that reliably produces an inline AI overview for me, namely [massachusetts railroad history]. For that query, this extension seems to remove the AI overview without affecting other results.

You might want to repeat your experiment with other queries that produce inline AI overview results. If you can produce a reproducible case, I'd be happy to look at it more.

[Pablo87996]

Hi Adam,

I have tried the query you suggested, but the extension work properly. I also tried the query [stack overflow], and the problem that I mentioned occurred. In both cases where the problem happens, the AI overview appears immediately after the first result. When it happens, both the AI overview and all the other results are inside a div, which is the element div#rso > div that is closest to the h2 tag. I hope it can help you reproduce the issue.

Disabled extension

Query: [massachusetts railroad history]

Query: [how to create browser extension in javascript]

Query: [stack overflow]

Enabled extension

Query: [massachusetts railroad history]

Query: [stack overflow]

[medovina]

The queries [stack overflow] and [how to create browser extension in javascript] don't produce any AI overview for me, so I'm still unable to reproduce this. Again, Google's results may vary from region to region or from user to user, in ways that we can't easily explain.

If you are able to modify this extension's code to fix the problem you are seeing, go for it - you can submit a pull request. Otherwise, I will keep my eyes open to see if I encounter the behavior you're seeing with any of my own queries.

[medovina]

Today I found a query that I can use to reproduce the problem you are describing: it is [unsolved diophantine equations].

When I make this query with this extension disabled, it produces two search results (Universiteit Lein, MathOverflow), then an AI overview, then some more results (Wikipedia, MathOverflow again, and so on).

However, if I make the query with the extension enabled, I only get a single result on the search page, namely the top result from before (Universiteit Lein). All other results are gone!

So it appears that you're right that the extension can sometimes eliminate ordinary search results that are not the AI overview. That's bad.

I'll try to look more at this at the JavaScript level when I can find some time.

[Pablo87996]

Hello Adam,

I am happy you could reproduce the problem. If I can find some time, I will try to solve it and make a pull request.

Thank you for your attention.

[medovina]

Great, thanks.

By the way, the title of this issue ("AI Overview appearing within tag strong") is not especially relevant. I recommend either (a) renaming it to something like "extension hides some legitimate search results" or (b) closing this issue and opening a new one.

[Pablo87996]

You are right. I will rename it as you suggested.

[medovina]

Today I noticed another query where the extension hides many legitimate results: it is [ebnf character range]. With the extension disabled, it produces a series of results including (1) a Wikipedia page, (2) an AI overview, (3, 4, ...) more results. With the extension enabled, only result (1) appears.