As you are no doubt aware all three major search engines: Google, Bing and Yahoo keep a record of your full search history. They do this to provide you with suggested searches, targeted ads and so you easily return to recent searches. But they also sell it to advertisers and may make it available to Government agencies, law enforcement officers and who knows who else…
You can, however, take control of your internet search history and either delete selected items, your entire search history or turn it off altogether.
An obvious way to prevent your history being stored is to make sure you are not logged on to a Google, Bing or Yahoo service when using those search engines but it’s easy to forget whether you’re signed in or not.
You can also use one of the many search engines that don’t track your history or retain it only for a short period.
Below we show you how to manage your search history:-
Managing Your Google Search History
1. Open your browser and type the address www.google.com/history.
2. If you are not already signed in to Google you will be prompted to do so. Sign in. (If you have more than one Google account you will need to do this for each account.)
Your history page will be shown:-
3. You can either select individual items or select all shown on the page then hit the ‘Remove items’ button.
4. To delete your entire history click on the gear icon and select Remove Items from the drop down list. Then from the pop-up window select ‘from the beginning of time’ and click Remove.
5. To turn off Google search history altogether click on the gear icon and select Settings from the drop down list. Then click on Pause.
6. To turn search history back on open your browser, sign in to Google and type the address www.google.com/history and select Turn Web History on.
Managing Your Bing Search History
1. Open the Bing Browser and then select ‘Search History’ from the top menu.
Your history page will be shown:-
2. Sign in if you haven’t already done so.
3. You can clear individual items or select ‘Clear all’.
4. Select ‘Turn off’ to stop Bing collecting your search history.
Managing Your Yahoo Search History
1. Open your browser and go to the Yahoo home page.
2. Search for any topic then on the search results page, mouse over the Gear Settings icon and select Search History from the drop down list.
Your history page will be shown:-
3. Sign in.
4. You can remove individual search items or clear all.
5. Select ‘Turn History Off’ to prevent yahoo from tracking your internet searches.