Search preferences

Search preferences live in two places on Settings: the General section — region, language, and links — and the Search section, which opens with the security and filtering switches that shape every search and carries a tab per result type (Web, Images, News, Videos, Shopping). All of them are stored on your account and follow you to every device you sign in on; change a form field and select Save to apply it.

Region & language

Region biases results toward one country (the request's gl). The default, Auto, infers a region from your connection. The list spans the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and South Africa.

Language is the preferred language for results (the request's hl): Auto, or one of English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi.

Security & filtering

These open the Search section.

Dangerous & malicious sites flags or removes results from known malicious, phishing, and malware domains.

Global safe search is a single switch that forces safe search on for every result type; while it is on, each type's own safe-search switch is locked. Safe search is on or off — on, explicit and adult results are filtered; off, nothing is.

Autocorrect & spelling lets the engine fix obvious typos and offer a did you mean correction. Turn it off to search exactly the characters you typed.

Links

Open results in a new tab opens each result link in a new browser tab, leaving the results page in place. It sits in General.

Citations & translation

Citation style sets the reference style used when you copy a citation from a result, and Custom citation template lets you define your own format. Both live in Settings → Utilities, alongside the translation preferences — automatic translation of foreign results and the full-page translation provider — covered in Translating results.

Per-type preferences

Each tab under Search holds the preferences for one result type:

• Web — Results per page (10, 20, 30, or 50), Default layout (Standard rows or Square cards), and Web safe search.
• Images — Default display mode (grid, justified, or masonry — see Display modes) and Image safe search.
• News — Default layout (Square cards or Standard rows) and News safe search.
• Videos — Default display mode (grid or list) and Video safe search.
• Shopping — Shopping safe search.

The same settings through the API

Several of these preferences are request parameters on the Search API: gl (region), hl (language), safe (safe search), time (recency), and num (result count). An API request states them per call; it does not read these account settings.