SearchWiki Breaks Numbered Google Results – Easy Fix

| Created: November 22nd, 2008
Greasemonkey Hacks 29 Comments

On 20 November 2008, Google introduced SearchWiki, allowing users to customize their search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding and commenting on them. I’m not going to cover how SearchWiki works, nor am I going to examine whether the impact of SearchWiki is positive or negative.

I was going to moan about how SearchWiki broke the Numbered Google Results script for Greasemonkey. Instead, I just worked out how to fix it. Here’s a simple hack to the Numbered Google Results script which allows it to work with SearchWiki.


SearchWiki Breaks The Numbered Google Results

The Numbered Google Results Greasemonkey script basically does what it’s title says: it numbers the results presented in Google’s Search Results. This allows you to instantly identify where a website is ranked. This is very useful for SEOs who are monitoring the progress of their websites in the SERPs.

You can see it in action in the following screenshot – note the numbers before each entry.

Numbered Google Results

With the introduction of SearchWiki, the numbered results broke. Certain results, such as News results from Google, still show a number, but normal search results don’t. You can clearly see this in the following screenshot.

SearchWiki Breaks Numbered Google Results

Note: If you’re not logged into Google, you won’t have this problem. This is because SearchWiki is only active (and therefore interferes with the script) when you’re logged in.

Solution – Hacking The Numbered Google Results Script

Thankfully, this problem can be easily solved by making a very simple hack to the script. Here are the steps (assuming you have installed the script):

  1. Right-Click on the Greasemonkey icon in Firefox
  2. Click Manage User Scripts and a dialog box will open
  3. Select Number Google Results from the list
  4. Click the Edit button (at the bottom of the dialog box)
  5. If asked for the location of a text editor, find one on your hard drive (if you use Notepad, start by looking for C:\Windows\Notepad.exe)
  6. Make the change shown below, then Save, Close and click Okay
  7. Refresh (F5) Google to make sure the changes are loaded

Here’s the change. Find the following line (at around line 54):

[sourcecode language=”js”]
if (tp.className == ‘g’) {
[/sourcecode]

and change it to:

[sourcecode language=”js”]
if (tp.className == ‘g’ || tp.className == ‘g w0’) {
[/sourcecode]

I told you it was simple! You should now get numbered results whether you are logged into Google or not. SearchWiki won’t break it.

29 responses on “SearchWiki Breaks Numbered Google Results – Easy Fix”

  2. Caroline@debit card loans

    Searchwiki has just started showing up on my searches although I have been using SEO for Firefox which has a numbering system.

  5. Tran@airport parking

    Thanks for this – I rely on the Greasemonkey script so would really miss the numbered searches.

  6. bleuken@expense management software

    I’m just hoping that you could explain if SearchWiki does some good or bad effect on the real, non-login results. Google did not confirm anything about it but I have a hunch that there’s a possibility that results will be affected by this.

  7. lisa@Black Friday Woodbury Commons

    I use Aaron Wall’s SEO plugin and I think Search Wiki broke it too but he put out a patch. Looking forward to seeing what you write about searchwiki. I hate it – too much clutter.

  8. Brad@Online Internet Marketing

    Appreciate the time you have taken to sort out a fix, but still having trouble with it.

    Has anyone had trouble getting the patch to work?

  9. Brad@Online Internet Marketing

    Sorry have it sorted now! I had a special moment I wish not to share. 🙂 hahaha

  10. Hex@van leasing

    I’m not liking the searchwiki thing at all. Too much onscreen clutter – thanks for this fix though.

  11. paul@current account

    I’m not entirely convenienced with the searchWiki, it appears to have caused more harm than good both to my addon and online experience. Forgot I had the wiki on and used wrong results.

  12. Villas in Greece

    Hey Stephen, you have written an excellent post. I liked the topic you have chosen. Its true that searchwiki has only created much on screen clutter, which can’t be appreciated.

    LINK REMOVED: because of failure to use KeywordLuv syntax (name@keywords)

  13. Web Design Solutions

    Congratulations Stephens for writing such a good post. I must say that you have chosen an important topic. I also believe that searchwiki has created an exceessive online clutter, which doesn’t worth appreciation.

    LINK REMOVED: because of failure to use KeywordLuv syntax (name@keywords)

  14. OM@Cheap cars

    Thanks for sharing this information. It really cuts down a lot of time and also is less stressful, i must say…

  15. Macey

    New updates are always welcome ! If you want to stay up with latest news and improvements those sites are necessity.

  16. Iamsgf

    For numbered search results I have been using SEO for Firefox with many other benefits and features. Although I am not quite familiar with searchwiki but I was planning to use it and to customize it. I think I’ll have to read a lot of stuff first of first.

  18. Srednarb@Promotional Items Corporate Gifts Srednarb

    I have been using the plugin Customize Google and and the Search Wiki also breaks the numbering. Thanks for the solution. i will use Greasemonkey instead of CustomizeGoogle plugin for the numbering.

    Is GreaseMonkey smart enough to start at 11 and not back at one for page 2?

  19. Rome@NDS Games

    Thank you for this fix Stephen. I’ve wondered how to fix that for the longest time but I just didn’t mind it because I wasn’t good at fixing things! 🙂

  20. Mattie

    This is really a good one and advisable to all..As the numbering shows the count of the sites occurred we can easily have a count on it..So that we can try to improve the count instead of checking one by one..

  21. tony@Cheap web hosting.

    Nice fix for google search wiki. I am not a fan of the search wiki and wonder how it will effect results over time.

  22. Jenn@Woodstock Real Estate

    Search Wiki will have to improve drastically before it becomes relavent. I guess we shall see.

  23. jaydee@Logo design

    Many thanks for this fix, I really rely on the number google results script and was getting annoyed that it stopped working – works perfectly again!

    btw your ‘copy to clipboard’ link doesn’t seem to work for me…

  24. Ed (eBay Shop Design)

    Since the Google Caffeine update the script has stopped working. I guess its to do with a change in the code format of the new SERP’s.

    Any idea what needs to be changed to get it working again?

    1. Stephen Cronin Post author

      Hi Ed,

      Haven’t had time to look at it, but I suspect it’s not Caffeine per se – it’s more likely to be the new AJAX method they’re using, eg:

      http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp…. etc

      instead of:

      http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=google

      That’s broken quite a few things, including numbered search results. I’ve been getting these URLs from Google on and off for the last few months (I’m in Australia).

      That doesn’t help you, I know. I guess the original author will update the script at some point, or perhaps I will if I get the time. In the meantime, the workaround is to use Advanced Search which uses the old style URL and allows the numbering to work..