Try Without Personalisation: What it Actually Changes
Try without personalisation to see Google results with less guesswork, simple, eye-opening, and easy to test.
Try without personalisation is Google’s temporary way to reload results without the account-based tweaks tied to your history. It does not change your settings, and some results can still be shaped by location, language, device, or current searches.
Most people assume Google gives everyone the same results for the same query. In reality, a results page can shift based on your account, your past activity, your location, and even the kind of content you tend to click.
That is why the try without personalisation option matters. It gives you a cleaner comparison point, so you can see whether a result is genuinely strong or simply being lifted by what Google already knows about you.
What try without personalisation actually does
At a basic level, this feature is a temporary switch for one results page. Google says that when you click the “Try without” link, you can view results without personalization, but your account settings do not change.
That detail is easy to miss, and it is the heart of the feature. It is not a permanent privacy setting, and it is not a dramatic “turn everything off” button; it is more like opening a second window for the same query and asking, “What does this look like without my history nudging it?”
Personalized vs non-personalized results
Google’s help pages make an important distinction: personalization does not affect every result the same way. Sometimes it changes the order of individual links, and other times it changes the order of whole result blocks, such as video-heavy results showing up ahead of web links.
That means two people can search the same phrase and still get slightly different pages for reasons beyond personalization, including time, context, language, and location. The useful part of try without personalisation is not that it guarantees a different page every time; it is that it lets you test how much of the page is driven by your own data.
Why Google added the option
Google has spent years making personalization more visible and more controllable. In its own explanation, it says the goal is to help people understand what makes a result useful for them and to give them more direct control over personalized results.
That is also why the interface can feel slightly confusing at first. The footer message may say “Results are personalized” or “Results are not personalized,” but the real story is broader: some personalization is account-based, some is based on signals like location, and some is simply a result of how Google ranks helpful content for that moment.
When the feature is useful
This is most useful when you suspect your results are being “helped along” by your own habits. If you keep seeing the same kind of pages, the same kind of videos, or the same kinds of brands, the non-personalized view gives you a reality check.
It is especially handy for comparison searches. Think of queries like product reviews, “best of” lists, troubleshooting questions, or topics where your past clicks may have created a small echo chamber. In those moments, try without personalisation can show you whether you are seeing the broader web or just a version of it shaped around your history.
A few real-world situations where it helps
If you search for something local, personalization and location can blend together in ways that are hard to untangle. Google gives the example of a search like “pizza near me,” where location still matters even when personalization is reduced.
If you are researching a topic you already know well, the feature is useful in a different way. It helps you see whether Google is surfacing content because it is broadly relevant or because it matches your past interest patterns, such as frequently reading video content, shopping content, or a particular niche.
What it does not change
The biggest misconception is that turning off personalization makes Google blind to everything about you. Google says that even with personalization off, it still uses some information to improve results, including your location, language, device type, and current searches.
That means the page can still feel “tailored” in ordinary ways. A person searching from one city will naturally see different local results from someone searching from another city, and someone searching in a different language may get a different mix of pages even when account personalization is off.
Three signals that can still matter
Location matters when the query has a local angle, such as restaurants, services, or stores. Google’s own examples show that city-level relevance can still be applied even when personalized recommendations are disabled.
Language matters because Google tries to match the language of the page to the language of the query and the user setting. Device type can matter too, because the layout and the kinds of content Google prioritizes may differ slightly between mobile and desktop.
Current searches matter because Google can use what you are asking right now to refine what it shows next. That is not the same as long-term personalization, but it does mean the results page is still context-aware.
How it compares with other ways to reduce personalization
| Method | What it does | Best for | Main caveat |
| Try without personalisation | Temporarily reloads the current results without account-based personalization. | A quick side-by-side check. | It does not change your settings, and results may still look similar. |
| Personalized Recommendations in Search services | Turns Google’s account-level personalization on or off. | A more lasting preference change. | It is broader than one page and affects future behavior tied to your account. |
| Incognito mode in Chrome | Limits what Chrome saves on your device during that session. | Private local browsing on a shared device. | It keeps browsing more private on your device, but it does not make you invisible to websites or your network. |
The cleanest way to think about the difference is this: try without personalisation is a page-level test, personalization settings are an account-level choice, and Incognito is a browser-session privacy tool. They overlap a little, but they solve different problems.
How to use it more effectively
The simplest habit is to compare the same query twice: once normally, and once with the temporary non-personalized view. That makes it much easier to see whether the top result is broadly strong or just unusually well aligned with your own habits.
There is also an older trick power users have used for years: adding &pws=0 to a Google results URL. Search Engine Land notes that this is the underlying behavior Google uses for the non-personalized view, but the in-page option is easier for most people to use.
A simple way to read the difference
If the two result pages look almost identical, that does not mean the feature failed. Google says the results can look the same when there is not much reason to change them, which is actually useful information in itself.
If the pages change a lot, that is your signal that personalization has been doing more work than you expected. That can be helpful for shopping, research, news discovery, or any query where you want a broader view before you commit to a source.
Common misconceptions
A big one is that the feature permanently turns personalization off. It does not; Google explicitly says your settings stay the same when you click Try without.
Another is that it removes every trace of tailoring. It does not, because Google still uses context such as location, language, device, and current searches to make results more useful.
A third misconception is that the link will always be there. In practice, coverage can vary by account, device, or query, and reporting has noted that the option does not appear for everyone all the time.
Three quotable truths
Clicking Try without personalisation does not change your Google settings.
Personalization affects some results more than others.
Even without personalization, Google still uses signals like location and language.
FAQ
What does try without personalisation do?
It temporarily reloads the current Google results page without account-based personalization. Google says your settings do not change when you use it.
Does it turn off personalization for all future searches?
No. It only affects the page you are looking at, not your account settings. For a longer-term change, Google points you to the personalization settings in your Google Account.
Why do the results sometimes look the same?
Google says that can happen when it does not need to change the results much. In other words, the feature can confirm that personalization was not doing much for that query.
Is it the same as Incognito mode?
No. Incognito mode mainly limits what is saved on your device during browsing, while Try without personalisation changes how Google presents that one results page. They solve different problems.
How do I permanently reduce personalized results?
Google says you can go to your Google Account, open Data & privacy, choose Personalization settings, and turn Personalized Recommendations in Search services on or off. That is the account-level control, not the temporary page-level toggle.
Key takeaways
- Try without personalisation is a temporary way to view Google results without account-based personalization.
- Clicking it does not change your settings.
- Google still uses signals like location, language, device type, and current searches.
- Personalization can affect either individual links or whole result blocks.
- The page may look the same if Google did not need to adjust much.
- Incognito mode is not the same thing; it mainly limits what is saved locally in Chrome.
- For a lasting change, use Google Account personalization settings rather than the temporary toggle.
