And Then Google Announces “Google Suggest….”

Just as I riff on “Also Try” as a key differentiator for Yahoo, Google announces that they are testing a search suggestion tool. It’s not incorporated into the main index, yet, but here are details from a note I got from PR:

“In our ongoing effort to create innovative technologies that enable users to

search more of the world’s information, Google today released an

experimental search service on Google Labs called Google Suggest. This new

web search service suggests queries as a user types what he or she is

looking for into the search box. By offering more refined searches up front,

Google Suggest can make searching more convenient and efficient, because it

eliminates the need to type the entire text of a query. In addition, the

service can connect users with new query suggestions that are useful,

intriguing, and fun.

Google Suggest is similar to Google’s “Did you mean?” feature, which offers

users alternative spellings for a query. But, Google Suggest works as the

user types in a query in real-time. For example, if a user types “bass,”

Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include “bass fishing”

or “bass guitar.” Similarly, if a user types in only part of a word such as

“progr,” Google Suggest will offer query refinements such as “programming,”

“programming languages,” “progesterone,” or “progressive.”

Suggested queries are displayed in a drop-down menu below the search field

and users can scroll through and select queries using their keyboard arrow

keys. Google Suggest draws from a wide range of information, including the

aggregate popularity of Google.com searches, to predict the queries and URLs

users most likely want to see. An example of this popularity information can

be found in the Google Zeitgeist. Google Suggest does not base its

suggestions on the searches of an individual user or searches conducted from

a particular computer or browser.

Google Suggest is available via Google Labs at

http://labs.google.com/suggest. This is an experiment, and as always, we

welcome user feedback. Questions and or suggestions can be sent to

labs+suggest@google.com.

”