Google Suggest has been recently updated to include link suggestions as well as sponsored links along with the list of suggestions.
Google Suggest is a drop down menu that provides a list of query suggestions when a user starts typing in a query. The feature was added to the search engine’s home page last August and is now being updated.
To begin with, links are being added to Google Suggest. If a search query appears to be navigational, that site will appear in the drop down menu itself, thus saving the users time when he conducts the search operation.
Another new feature is the addition of Sponsored Links or ads among the search suggestions. Such related ads will now appear directly in the search suggestion box. The ads will be marked ‘Sponsored Link’ and will be on a coloured background to differentiate them.
Thirdly, when a user who is on a particular results page starts another search, he will receive certain search suggestions which will be related to the previous search which he has carried out.
The last feature to be added to Google Suggest is a personalization of suggestions. This means that when a user signs in to his Google account and if his computer has ‘Web History’ on the ‘Enabled’ mode, search suggestions will be sent to him by Google, based on his past searches. Google has found that users who are signed in often repeat their searches. In fact the figure for repeat searches is as high as 25%. Users have however been provided with an option labeled ‘Remove’ which they can use if they do not want a past search to show up in future.
The final change being made on Google Suggest is the deletion of the number of searches that have been conducted for a given query, as Google feels that this data has been of no use to their users.
