Posted by: Chelsea Maxwell, Marketing Coordinator

Suggested search is a helpful tool that is standard on most search engines. Google is taking steps to make it even more useful. Previously, when a user would enter a search query the menu would drop down with a range of possible search terms and clicking on any one of those would send you to a results page. Now, when a user enters a search query the drop-down menu includes hyperlinks, personalized results, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements. For example, if you start typing “AdWords” into Google, you can see the first result in the drop-down menu is an actual link to the AdWords site. The idea is to cut out the results page, ultimately saving the user time. Google says there will not be hyperlinks for all queries, only the ones in which they are pretty sure they know what the user is searching for.

Google is taking steps to make Suggest personalized as well. When the user is on a search results page Suggest will further tailor their next query based on the first. For example, if the user’s first search was for “travel Europe,” when you get to the results page and start typing in the search box again the drop-down results will be based upon the original search query. So, for example, if you starting typing “Italy,” Suggest would recommend pages dealing with Italian travel.

Along with adding hyperlinks and personalized search history, Google is also experimenting with including paid results in the Suggest box. It is likely that advertisers will want to bid for their ad to show before a search query is even finished. This concept is currently being tested with a small number of advertisers, and it will be interesting to see where it leads!