Brave Search: raise or discard domains in search for custom results

Brave launched a new search feature today that introduces reranking options. The core idea is to give users of the search engine an option to see more results of websites they like or prefer, and less or nothing at all of sites that they do not like or want to see.

This is especially useful if you come upon sites that you do not value highly regularly, or miss articles or information from a site that you do value.

Brave notes that rerank only applies to the current user. It has no impact on a site’s presence on the search engine, other than for the user who made the change. The feature does not require an account, which is another plus.

Denoted sites do not appear in search results any longer on Brave Search. This works similarly to the extension uBlacklist, which works on Google Search only though.

Raised sites get a new ranking signal that boost their ranking. While they may still not be shown in the first few spots in the results, their rank should be higher than before.

Brave Search’s AI component takes the new signals into account, which means that you should see sites mentioned more often or less there as well.

Good to know: the feature uses Brave Goggles, a feature that Brave introduced in 2022. It allows users to create custom filters that change search result rankings.

How to use the new feature on Brave Search

You can access the new feature after you run a search. Click on the new rerank icon in the top right corner to display the options. There you may:

• Raise any listed site to strengthen it in Brave Search.
• Discard any site to make sure it won’t show up in the search results anymore.

The listing changes when you switch pages in the results.

There is no option currently to add custom sites. If you want to get rid of a site or promote one, you need to run a search that includes it. The best way to do that is to search for the name of the site, as it will likely appear in the results in that case.

The finetuning applies to any search. If you raise a site, it will rank higher regardless of search term. That’s important to note, as it may catapult sites that cover anything to the top of the results regularly, if you raise them.

A click on the edit button displays options to remove sites again.

Closing Words

Rerank is an excellent feature that may improve Brave Search for users who use it. While I wish it would include an option to add a site manually, it is possible that it will come at a later point.

It is still possible to run default searches using a browser’s private browsing mode.

You can read more about the new feature on the Brave website.