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Google has launched a new feature that tries to guess what users are looking for as they type queries into a search box.

Google Suggest quietly debuted this week on the company's Labs site, which showcases Google features that "aren't quite ready for prime time," according to a message on the site. When a user starts typing a request into the search box, a drop-down menu appears with possible suggestions as to what the user could be looking for.

For instance, typing in "Mi" generates a list starting with "Microsoft" and continuing with "miniclip," "Michael Moore" and "miserable failure," among other suggestions. Google uses "a wide range of information" to predict queries, according to an FAQ, including data about the overall popularity of various searches. The company does not use individual search histories to help generate the prompts, it says.

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News source: C|Net News.com

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#1 frazell on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:37

Interesting....

Search is one of those technologies that it's getting harder and harder to innovate in...

(7 replies) #2 LeNath on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:43

I personally think this will be another revenue source for Google: company will pay to have their name included in the propositions made by SUGGEST = more "ad corrupted" results... 99,9% of the time when you do a search on whatever search engine, you know what you are searching for.... I don't need anyone SUGGESTing me anything (even more when it is totally irrelevant with my search...

#2.1 Varsity on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:46

I agree. This is a cool gizmo but serves little useful purpose and may well be taken over by ads.

*goes around touching avery tree he finds*

#2.2 bush on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:52

probably not. what's the point of this suggest thing then? and as long as it is not offered as default search, everything is ok

#2.3 triad_man on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:36

I hope they are very forthcoming about how the sugestions are reached. As long as adds are clearly marked as such I have no problem.

#2.4 Miran on 10 Dec 2004 - 18:13

It may help if, for example, you know the first word of a song or a band and can't remember the last few words. Like, for example, if I type "Manic S" it comes up with "Manic Street Preachers" right away.

#2.5 uRdED on 11 Dec 2004 - 01:12

What you're forgetting is that the vast majority of 'users' out there are not tech-savvy people. If it's something that makes the vast majority of people go "wow, that's cool" or "that's really helpful", then they're gonna do it. Especially if it's helpful to people such as the disabled. I would certainly hope that Google would provide a means by which to disable such a feature for those of us who would prefer no suggestions, but that remains to be seen.

#2.6 chacho on 11 Dec 2004 - 16:05

Google doesn't allow pay-for-placement in search results, so why would they allow it here? Its pretty much the same thing...

#2.7 LeNath on 12 Dec 2004 - 12:33

Well, you'd like to think they don't allow pay for placement...

(2 replies) #3 lunamonkey on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:44

Seems a bit pointless.

Is its main target audience the lazy typers or disabled users?

#3.1 lare2 on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:48

QUOTE

disabled users?

Theres a good point

#3.2 Jugalator on 10 Dec 2004 - 22:53

1. Lazy typers
2. Disabled users
3. Users who want to search more efficiently
4. Users who don't recall an entire name/spelling of a person or something else

#4 neufuse on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:49

kind of stupid except for impaired people... I can see this being misued and eventually having ad results placed in it ranked higher or something

(3 replies) #5 bush on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:50

excellent. goodbye msn search

#5.1 krono6 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:01

Theres an MSN Search now

Oh yeah, thats the Search which gave me nightmares.....I searched for X-Men and a flood of evil Pornography Ads tried to KILL me!

#5.2 dismuter on 11 Dec 2004 - 08:58

http://search.msn.com
Type X-Men and see how much pornography you get! That's right, none

#5.3 M2Ys4U on 11 Dec 2004 - 16:16

maybe krono6 searched for xxx-men by mistake

#6 xploit1030 on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:54

I like it. I just hope it will conform to your types of search. Like if you constantly search for porn related items it will suggest those more (I know I am asking for too much but why not).

(1 reply) #7 Hankyone on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:54

yay google r0x!!!

#7.1 SquareSoft0 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:37

L!3k, OGM T3h R0x0r j0o B0x0rzzz!1!!(eleventeen)!!1

(2 replies) #8 nemo on 10 Dec 2004 - 15:59

hahah mikes apartment is so porno

#8.1 SkyyPunk on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:07

exactly what i was going to post lol

#8.2 EVO VIII on 11 Dec 2004 - 09:51

hahaha i noticed that too

(2 replies) #9 Matt™ on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:05

Ya, so when are they going to implement the feature that scratches my ass for me?

#9.1 SkyyPunk on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:07

I am eagerly awaiting this feature too!!!

#9.2 krono6 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:03

Maybe after they make the Futuristic ON Switch for my Brain......I lost mine

(1 reply) #10 Jack31081 on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:08

interesting tool, but who goes to google saying, "hmm...what do I want to search for today? Perhaps something starting with the letters GUS...ah, 'guster lyrics'...that'll work"

#10.1 Jugalator on 10 Dec 2004 - 23:04

Eh... Are you serious?

Not many. Of course.

But how about people going to Google to search for, say, David Letterman (it's on my TV now

). They now only have to type david l.

#11 rojack on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:12

that's just annoying - being second guessed everytime -nah

(1 reply) #12 tiger2k on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:14

I knew this was coming. Ever since i saw it in gmail. (when composing an email, start typing a person's name that is in your contact list) Somehow i knew this day would come

#12.1 jameseuk on 10 Dec 2004 - 20:17

lol

(2 replies) #13 elliot on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:15

Meh...

I found it quicker to just type what i wanted than type half of it and scroll down the list.

#13.1 Vannos on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:38

I agree. When you can type at 40-60 wpm, it takes alot longer to pick something from a list...

#13.2 Jugalator on 10 Dec 2004 - 22:55

I found it quicker to just type what i wanted than type half of it and scroll down the list.

Uh, then don't pick the item from the list?

The nice thing about this is that you can chose -- it's certainly faster *if* it gets early on the list. If not you can just ignore it. Sort of like typing a file name into Windows Explorer.

#14 Savagearth on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:17

That was a feature in Opera back into the beta days of 7.2 if I remember it correctly.

(1 reply) #15 DirtyLarry on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:35

This is pointless, truly and sincerely.
The only logical application I thought of (besides people being truly lazy *******s), was for people who are terrible spellers, but even then Google now asks you are you sure you did not meant to spell it like this?
Psssh... Pointless IMO

#15.1 krono6 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:05

Yes, great point for you......Although for Lazy *******'s like me..

#16 nic on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:39

I think it looks like a cool feature that won't get in the way. I also think the Google will let your turn it off in your "preferences", like they let you do a lot of things.

I really want to steal their browser scripted combobox code though. I could really use that in a few of my online database forms I keep up

#17 Greenstein on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:42

me likey

(1 reply) #18 Cyranthus on 10 Dec 2004 - 16:50

yeah, i think people know what they're going to search for when they start entering info... they dont need google to second guess for them... this is extremely distracting.

#18.1 Jugalator on 10 Dec 2004 - 22:56

Well, I can go to Neowin forums if I don't have it bookmarked by typing "neowin f". I couldn't before. I find this useful.

(1 reply) #19 BorderPatrol on 10 Dec 2004 - 17:08

You guys are thinking like advanced users. You have to think like the average web user.

When you type in a URL in the address bar of IE, what happens? A little dropdown box shows up with a list of the last URLs you used. And what do most users do? Instead of typing "Neowin.net", they start to type "neo", then neowin.net shows up in the dropdown box and they pick that instead of completing the URL.

This new Google feature mimics that process. It's very helpful for users who type 10-15wmp. You know the type, the ones who peck at the keyboard with one finger. It's easier to simply type in "anna" then choose the name, instead of "anna kournikova". Not to mention it ensures the correct spelling the first time, without any second clicks.

This is actually a very useful tool. Way to go Google!

#19.1 chacho on 11 Dec 2004 - 16:10

Excellent point.

(2 replies) #20 CAE11 on 10 Dec 2004 - 17:12

Well that was silly. I had to type out "porn," it couldn't even predict it and if it can't predict that...

But yeah, I digress. It could be a very cool tool, if only out of interest in what people search.

#20.1 Miran on 10 Dec 2004 - 18:16

HEHE! I wonder how many of us tried "Porn" just to see what it would do. I know I did lol!

#20.2 krono6 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:07

OMG, Theres no Porn Suggestion!! *dies*

#21 KXM on 10 Dec 2004 - 17:25

I think this is useful. Considering sometimes I'm not sure the best way to phrase what I'm looking fir, this gives me a list of the most searched for terms.

Plus I tend to spell phonetically [THANK GOD FOR IESpell!], so a lot of the times I misspell things. This helps.

However, I think they are gonna end up getting in trouble over cracks.

For instance, if I start typing 'Meedio', the 2nd result in meedio crack. How much would this piss off, say Microsoft?

#22 Dixon on 10 Dec 2004 - 17:47

Search for REALLY lazy people... what next it will think for us too! Sheesh

(2 replies) #23 Dessimat0r on 10 Dec 2004 - 18:29

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

You can use it here.

#23.1 krono6 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:08

No offense...but why did you post this here?? It already says the Link in the Screenshot

#23.2 SimplyPotatoes on 10 Dec 2004 - 21:00

TKS!

(1 reply) #24 Klownicle on 10 Dec 2004 - 18:52

Interesting on a coders aspect, wonder how they do it in realtime.

#24.1 MoRiA on 10 Dec 2004 - 23:52

Considering there was a slight delay when I tested it out, I imagine they're doing the same thing they do with Gmail. That is to have a hidden frame somewhere in which they can load JavaScript files with various content. After I saw how Gmail did that I started doing similar things on my own website, since it is much faster for the user to just click a link and load a JS file, than have to load the entire damned page again. Saves server bandwidth, too...

In fact if you view source of that google page you can see that it loads http://www.google.com/ac.js which then creates an IFRAME element at the end of the page (check the 'ac' function..).

#25 Hills420 on 10 Dec 2004 - 18:59

pretty good...

#26 SniperX on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:09

Personally, I hate those things and feel they just get in my way. So long as it's optional, I'm a happy camper regardless.

(1 reply) #27 supernova_00 on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:50

lol type just "f" firefox is first! muahahaha

#27.1 DenS on 13 Dec 2004 - 20:37

hehe good catch!

#28 tiwaris on 10 Dec 2004 - 19:51

From where will it get suggesions, if it downloads the suggestions from their servers (it is equivalent to performing one more search), then how will it be realtime??

#29 WinXPro on 10 Dec 2004 - 21:49

1. I can never spell

2. I typed "p" and "paris hilton" was the first one on the list

cool

#30 Jugalator on 10 Dec 2004 - 22:51

Heh, Google showing how to innovate in search engines again

Now watch the big masses follow... once again

(2 replies) #31 brianshapiro on 10 Dec 2004 - 23:25

haha...

I checked an Google removed all of the words related to porn so 'bestiality' , 'slut' , 'fisting' etc are gone. However, they didn't remove all the mispellings of them, so there's 'beastality', 'beastility', 'fistinh', and even 'fistin movie'...

:>

#31.1 Cephas on 11 Dec 2004 - 04:20

Wow, you did a bit of "research" eh?

#31.2 brianshapiro on 12 Dec 2004 - 05:23

yes.... i did it to see if the words were there. why else would i bother entering porn words while testing the Suggest feature. if i was just looking for porn i would use regular google

#32 SoulEata on 11 Dec 2004 - 00:04

there's no suggestion for porn, or sex, or the f-bomb.
Why is google censoring it's results?

edit: while google still is censoring it's results, type 'nigge' and see what comes up.

#33 |Maxim| on 11 Dec 2004 - 00:29

LOL at the screenshot, at least one porn site was listed when searching 'mi' (mikes apartment)

#34 a_witko on 11 Dec 2004 - 01:05

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

to try it out!!!!

#35 a_witko on 11 Dec 2004 - 01:14

well, it works with sublimepie and sublime directory... cools!

#36 webeagle12 on 11 Dec 2004 - 04:33

yeah u searh for Pony, and your get porno, ponogrpahy, etc..

(3 replies) #37 obake on 11 Dec 2004 - 06:21

It's censored. Out of curiousity (seriously!), I typed in "porn." Nothing appeared in the drop-down menu. Next, I tried typing "hentai." This time, I got something, but it was purposefully (?) misspelled "hentia." Maybe this is because it's a beta, I dunno, but people aren't going to like having their searches restricted.

#37.1 ahodes1 on 11 Dec 2004 - 15:10

And some people wouldn't like not having their search results censored. Many parents and schools would be quite upset if when typing the letter p, children were presented with the option to search for porn.

#37.2 chacho on 11 Dec 2004 - 16:10

Maybe they could introduce this concept to their safesearch version...

#37.3 obake on 11 Dec 2004 - 23:28

Yeah, implementing SafeSearch options, similar to those found in the image search on Google, would fix the problem.

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