How to remove an auto-complete suggestion from Safari - Update
Recently I noticed that when I typed "goog" in the Safari address bar, it would try to autocomplete using a googleads link which is of course NOT what I wanted. I tried searching this discussion site and came upon this previous thread: How to remove an auto-complete suggestion… - Apple Community
The top suggestion in that thread was to clear your entire browser history. Well, I commonly use my browser history so I was hoping to avoid doing that, and the OP in that thread also mentioned that clearing the history also clears the sites that they wanted to keep track of.
I tried to analyze the situation a little more before opting for such a drastic sledgehammer approach to the problem. When you start typing in the Safari address bar, it tries to autocomplete your URL and the first suggestion is labeled as "Top Hit." I knew that, but what I had never noticed is that there is an X that appears when you hover over the suggested Top Hit URL with your mouse cursor. Clicking on the X, I was able to remove the errant Top Hit suggestion trying to autocomplete my google.com addressing with the googleads URL. I hope this post can help somebody hoping to achieve the same goal that I was trying to achieve without having to remove the entire browsing history.
Lastly, why would Safari ever choose such a stupid URL to suggest as a "Top Hit" to autocomplete typing in the address bar in the first place??? FYI, I am currently using Sonoma 14.7 on an M1 MacBook Pro.
MacBook Pro 16″