Google's suggestions are sometimes surprising, weird, funny. Google tries to guess what you are about to type and uses other people's searches to autocomplete your query. "Apart from the Google+ profiles that may appear, all of the predictions that are shown in the drop-down list have been typed before by Google users or appear on the web," informs Google.

Have you ever tried to anticipate Google's suggestions? Google Feud is a simple game based on Family Feud that shows the first part of a query and asks you to guess how Google autocompletes it. "Google Feud is a web game based on the Google API. We select the questions, then the results are pulled directly from Google's autocomplete," informs the site, which is not affiliated with Google.

Google Feud uses the top 10 suggestions for a query. You can get more points if you guess a suggestion that is more popular and you can only make 3 mistakes. There are 4 categories of queries: culture, people, names, questions.



{ via Techcrunch }

The suggestions that are diplayed when you type a Google search query are useful most of the time. Google tries to finish your query and suggests some popular queries that start with the keywords you've typed.

Sometimes Google also shows suggestions from web pages and many of them are pretty long and verbose. They look artificial because it's unlikely that many users typed them. Google compiles a list of popular n-grams from web pages and includes them in the list of Google Instant suggestions. You'll find page titles, excerpts from Wikipedia articles and press releases, but also incomplete suggestions that don't make any sense.

It's easy to spot these artificial suggestions: type a long query until Google no longer shows suggestions, type more keywords and Google will suddenly show long suggestions.

Here are some of them:









In the last example I've searched for ["the * why it's inaccurate"] and started to type a new word after "the", when I saw these absurdly detailed suggestions. If you search for [why would it be inaccurate], Google shows a single suggestion: [why would it be inaccurate to speak of an nacl molecule]. You need to type [why would it be inaccurate to call t] to see this suggestion: [why would it be inaccurate to call the pituitary gland the master gland of the body]. This long phrase can't be found in any web page, but it shows up because Google merges various word sequences.

Google Instant suggestions used to only include popular queries. Last year, Google started to show dynamic suggestions for the last words of your query. Now Google's suggestions seem to include excerpts from web pages.

For example, when you search for [intel solid state drive toolbox], Google's list includes two strange suggestions: [intel solid state drive toolbox(intel ssd toolbox)] and [intel® solid-state drive toolbox download]. It's really unlikely that many people search for [intel®] or include redundant versions of the query.


The real explanation is that a lot of pages include those texts and Google used them to enhance Google Instant.


What about the standard navigation links used by Google or Bing? Obviously, they're included in a lot of pages and few Google users would search for boilerplate text and also use special characters.



Google's help center page for autocomplete informs users that "Google's algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users' search activities and the contents of web pages indexed by Google".

Google's search suggestions are useful, but they're only displayed if many people search for them. If you type a "long tail" query, Google doesn't show suggestions and can't even finish the words you type.

Adam Harris, a reader of this blog, noticed that Google tests an enhanced version of Google Suggest that autocompletes words. For example, if you search for [javascript eval] and you add "conca" to your query, Google doesn't normally show suggestions. The new version of Google Suggest autocompletes the word you started to type and guesses that you wanted to use the word "concatenate".



Note: the first screenshot also shows a feature of a Chrome extension for Evernote.

{ Thanks, Adam. }

Google Video's homepage shows a strange message below the list of query suggestions: "In accordance with local laws and regulations, some results were removed from this list." The message is displayed for every query you enter, so it's unlikely that some of the suggestions are removed.


Update: Google says that "the appearance of the message on every search was in fact a bug and has since been corrected."

Google started to filter search suggestions that include terms associated with copyright infringement like "torrent", "bittorrent", "rapidshare", "megaupload". It's a slippery slope and Google's suggestions will be less useful since they'll no longer include many popular searches.

Last month, Google explained that this is one of the changes intended to address copyright infringement. "We will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete. While it's hard to know for sure when search terms are being used to find infringing content, we'll do our best to prevent Autocomplete from displaying the terms most frequently used for that purpose."

Blacklisting keywords like "torrent" is a terrible way to prevent copyright infringement since users can always type queries without Google's help. The main consequence is that Google will appear to be broken and users will no longer trust the suggestions because they're censored. Last year, Google started to become politically correct by removing the suggestions for queries like [why are muslim]. There will always be complaints about the suggestions, but starting to arbitrarily blacklist keywords opens a can of worms and makes it easy to remove other controversial suggestions. As Mashable says, "this is a subtle form of censorship, and at first glance it seems trivial. However, even though the censorship is slight, it still indicates Google's willingness to change its search protocols to satisfy the needs of a certain business group, in this case members of the entertainment industry."

Google doesn't blacklist "pirate bay", "isohunt", "mediafire", "cracks", "serial numbers", "keygen" and there's a simple trick to bypass the existing filters: start your queries using the blacklisted keywords (for example: [torrent ubuntu 10.10]).

Google Suggest Venn Diagram Generator is a visualization tool for popular Google searches. Enter an incomplete query, replace one of the keywords with "X", add three options for "X" and the tool will find the overlapping suggestions.

For example, if you enter "How can I get my X to", where "X" is: "wife", "cat", "dog", you'll find overlapping suggestions like: "How can I get my {wife, cat, dog} to lose weight", "How can I get my {cat, dog} to gain weight".


Hacker News readers came up with a lot of funny examples:

* Why is {America, Canada, Europe} so ...
* My {friend, wife, husband} is addicted to ...
* Why are {Chinese, Korean, Japanese} so ...
* Why is {C, PHP, Java} so ...

You should keep in mind that Google's suggestions are determined algorithmically based on the popularity of the search terms, so you'll find many stereotypes.

There are many missing features in Google Instant. The classic interface suggested searches from the Web History, so you could select previously typed queries.

It seems that this feature will be available again. Google tests a version of Google Instant with Web History suggestions. For some queries, 3 of the 4 suggestions are from the Web History and there's only one general suggestion.


Maybe it would be a better idea to only show one or two personalized suggestions, since they aren't always useful.

Google Suggest was supposed to help users type a query by providing useful suggestions. Unfortunately, some of the suggestions are offensive and Google had to filter the searches related to pornography, violence, and hate speech.

Google's over-protective algorithms now filter all the suggestions that include "is evil", "I hate", "[ethnic group] are" (for example, "chinese are"). Google Suggest also filters "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the name of a popular Nirvana song.


"Queries in autocomplete are algorithmically determined based on a number of objective factors (including search term popularity) without manual intervention," explains Google. Google Suggest's filtering flaws are more obvious, now that Google Instant previews the results without having to press Enter. If you type [google is e], Google no longer previews the results and suggests to "press Enter to search".

Google Blacklist (not safe work and potentially offensive) lists some of the rules used by Google to censor the list of suggestions. "Like everything these days, great care must be taken to ensure that as few people as possible are offended by anything. Google Instant is no exception. Somewhere within Google there exists a master list of "bad words" and evil concepts that Google Instant is programmed to not act upon, lest someone see something offensive in the instant results... even if that's exactly what they typed into the search bar."

{ via waxy.org }

Google Instant Search is a very interesting experiment that could change the way you find information on the Web, but the new interface comes with a lot of unpleasant side effects.

1. Google Suggest can no longer be disabled. Even if you disable Google Instant, suggestions will still be displayed.

2. You can no longer change the number of results. The interface would be less fluid if Google had to fetch 50 or 100 results every time you change your query.


3. Google Suggest no longer shows previously typed searches from Google Web History. This was a great feature for repeated queries. Marissa Mayer said last year that "40% of searches on any given day are repeat searches for a user".


4. Google Suggest no longer shows 10 suggestions. Because of space constraints, Google only displays 4 suggestions, followed by your original query.

5. The fade-in animation has been removed. This feature used to hide the navigation bar and all the links from the homepage until you moved your mouse.

6. "Search within results" is no longer available. This feature has never been useful because it didn't actually search within results. It only allowed you to add new keywords to an existing query.

7. Google's search box is not displayed at the bottom of the page. As Amit Agarwal points out, you have to scroll to the top of the page to change the query.


8. No more Wonder Wheel. Google's visualization tool allowed you to explore related searches.

9. Google removed the virtual keyboard. This feature is no longer available at Google Russia and will probably removed from all localized interfaces in the future. "Our virtual keyboard allows you to enter the precise search terms you want, regardless of the language keys on your physical keyboard. It can be helpful for people who use one of the many non-Latin script-based languages that require special characters," explains Google.

All of these features are still available if you log out or you use Google SSL, the encrypted search interface.

Can you find other missing features?

{ Thanks, Tom. }

This is one of the most useful features released by Google this year. Google Suggest, which usually auto-completes your query as you type, is now also a spell-checker. Even if Google can't find popular queries that start with the words you've typed, it will still show a "did you mean" entry that corrects your spelling mistakes.

The most impressive thing about this feature is that the spell checker is context-sensitive, so the suggestions are actually relevant. It's likely that Google uses the smart spell checker from Google Wave.

If you type [this is a rlly], Google suggests that [this is a rally] is more appropriate. Most browsers offer the same suggestion. If you type another word and your query is [this is a rlly beautiful], Google shows a different suggestion: [this is a really beautiful].



Type [Why its so important too eat hole grains] in a text field from a web page and your browser won't find any spelling mistakes. Not even Gmail's spell checker can find the mistakes. That's because most applications use dictionaries to find the words that are spelled incorrectly. Google Suggest is smarter because it tries to find if the words make sense in the context of your query.

Google Suggest has already been detecting misspellings and showing suggestions that include the properly spelled keywords, but now the mistakes are easier to spot. If you type a misspelled query, Google Suggest includes the "did you mean" label.

"These spelling suggestions already exist on the results page, but by moving them to an earlier point in the search process, we hope we've made it faster and easier to get to the results you're looking for. Right now, this feature is offered only for google.com in English, but we're working to roll this out internationally in the near future," explains Google.


A Wall Street Journal article listed some of the most commonly misspelled words in Google and other search engines: "Criagslist" instead of "Craigslist", "Facebok" instead of "Facebook", "definately", "definetly" or "definatly" instead of "definitely", "stilletos" or "stillettos" instead of "stilettos", "mischevious" and "mischievious" instead of "mischievous". Yahoo's most misspelled word of 2010 so far was Eyjafjallajokull, the famous volcano in Iceland that erupted this year.

Google Maps no longer shows suggestions only from your recent searches. When you start typing a query, Google Maps shows popular locations, searches and local businesses. For example, you can type "red" and the first suggestion is "Redmond, WA, USA".



The suggestions are helpful if you want to type a complicated name like Eyjafjallajökull and you only remember the first letters, but Google doesn't do a great job at ranking the list of suggestions.


The autocomplete feature from Google Maps is the first implementation of Google Suggest that uses HTTPS. Google Maps continues to show personalized suggestions from Google Web History, a feature that has replaced Saved Locations.

You probably noticed that Google's search services show different suggestions. For example, when you type "us" in Google Image Search, the first suggestion is "us map". Typing "us" in Google Web Search doesn't return the same suggestion: "us bank" is more popular. It makes sense to restrict the suggestions to queries that are popular in each specialized search engine because they're actually relevant.

Google Book Search seems to be the only Google service that shows irrelevant suggestions. When you type "shak", the top suggestions are "shakira" and "shake weight", even if "shakespeare" would be much more appropriate. Obviously, Google uses suggestions from the web search engine and "Shakira" is a more popular query than "Shakespeare".


"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." (Hamlet)

What Do You Suggest? is a site that lets you visually explore how Google Suggest autocompletes a query. "What Do You Suggest takes a seed from you, then guides you on a journey through language and the collective lives of Google users."



Simon Elvery, who created the site, found a lot of interesting patterns:

There are some recurring themes which have emerged as I've been playing with the site during its creation. Among other things, it seems people do rather a lot of searching on the topics of music, religion and relationships.

Sometimes the results are sad, like the people searching for free ebooks on relationships for dummies, and sometimes hopeful like looking for love.

Health is also a recurring theme with the names of medicines, diseases and symptoms appearing over and over again.

{ via Information Aesthetics }

When you start to type a query, Google suggests popular search terms that include your keywords. Sometimes the suggestions are surprising, especially when the suggested queries are long and descriptive. A suggestion like [i was bitten by a turtle when i was a young lad should i still drink orange juice] might surprise you if you didn't know that it was a question on Yahoo Answers that became famous.


Other suggestions could be popular songs, movie quotes or Internet memes. For example, [Dinosaurs were made up by the CIA to discourage time travel] is the name of a song.


The two examples are from Autocomplete Me, a site that collects funny Google suggestions and lets you rate them.

Google has recently added a feature that makes search suggestions even more useful. Let's say you type [christmas shop] and then you realize that you wanted to search for [christmas tree shop]. You don't have to add the word "tree" to your query: just type "t" before "shop" and Google adjusts the suggestions. The first suggested query is [christmas tree shop].




The change may seem subtle, but I think it's really significant: Google takes into account the caret position and shows suggestions for the word you are currently typing.

Here's another way to use smart suggestions: type "cat" in the search box, then type "r" before "cat". The first suggestion is [ragdoll cat], a popular query starts with "r" and includes the word "cat".


Yet another reason to use Google's search box instead of typing a query in your browser's search box.

Google's search suggestions started to include instant answers for Math calculations, unit conversions, currency conversions, weather information, simple facts, local time, package tracking, word definitions and more. That means you no longer have to click the search button and open a new page to see the results: the answers are displayed instantly.

"This kind of information will appear in Suggest either above or below the suggested search terms for a variety of queries. For example, you can type "delta 140" to see the flight status. You can also quickly discover the current time, figure out how many Euros you'll get per dollar, or even brush up on metric conversions," explains Google.







My only issue is that Google's answers can't be copied. If you try to select the suggestion, you'll notice that the answer is not added to the search box, so the only way to copy the result is to open the search results page.

Some of the instant answers are available even if you don't use Google's homepage: check the search suggestions from Firefox, Chrome, IE 8 and Google Toolbar.

Google's product search engine started to show suggestions when you type a query. The suggestions are obtained by comparing your partial query with popular searches.


After typing a query or selecting one from the list of suggestions, you can use the options displayed at the bottom of the page to filter the results by price, category, brand, store and seller's rating.

After showing suggestions for web search, image search and video search, Google started to autocomplete your queries in Google News. The suggestions are related to current news, so you don't have to type too many letters to find the latest stories about Opera 10, Walt Disney or Hurricane Jimena.



The interface makes it difficult to select suggestions using a keyboard, since you have to press "Enter" twice to perform a search, but this bug will probably be fixed. Another problem is that you can't disable suggestions by visiting the preferences page and selecting "Do not provide query suggestions in the search box".