Shorts are always irrelevant or mostly irrelevant to the information that you are trying to find. This method will block youtube shorts from showing up in your search results if you use ublock origin. I have only tested in firefox/librewolf.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
1. Type in your search #ie: how to set up vpn
2. scroll down and when you see the shorts, right click the container of the shorts reels and click on "block element".
3. Now click again in the area of the shorts and ublock will enable you to hover your mouse over the shorts area until the entire shorts frame is covered in a reddish overlay.
4. Click on the area after the overlay covers everything you want to block.
5. Then go to the bottom left hand corner and click "Create."
6. Repeat this process as you scroll. Youtube has at least 4 different shorts elements that need to be blocked.
Here are the filter rules I created:
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope:nth-of-type(1)
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope:nth-of-type(2)
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope:nth-of-type(3)
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope:nth-of-type(4)
There may be problems loading the page or the page might be slower when searching. If so you can delete the rules in the ublock origin "my filters" section.
