Google is well known for its innovation and is well established in many areas of web applications including documents, product search and maps; however its core business remains as search. This morning Google announced a change to its homepage- it will be setting Google Suggest as default on everyones homepage.
Google Suggest has been in Google Labs for about four years now. Suggest, as the name implies, will suggest search queries as you type them ‘on the fly’. There are several key advantages of this in terms of usability.
Suggest will encourage more detailed queries, resulting in more accurate results. For example instead of typing ‘Manchester train’ to find a list of train stations in Manchester it encourages you to select ‘Manchester train stations’ from the list.
The second advantage is that spelling errors will be reduced, so instead of pressing search and then discovering the search has been misspelt the spelling mistake will be corrected in the dropdown list.
Finally, and probably the best reason to use Google Suggest is that it reduces typing (keystrokes)- saving time!
Of course as with many Google features you’ll be able to remove Google Suggest through the preferences link at the top of the page.
Sam Rutley
SEO Programmer
