Google Ditches the Old Search Button and Puts ''Suggestions'' on Steroids
It's auto-complete on steroids.
Visitors to Google's U.S. homepage may have noticed a slight change to the way the search engine operates. The company has ditched the search button and is instead taking people directly to the results page with a new feature called Google Instant.
Revealed today at an event at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Google's Marrisa Meyer also blogged about Google Instant, explaining the concept to users. The idea is pretty simple. Instead of having to type your search terms into the box and hit search to see the results, Google will show you the results instantly, and update them as you type. Google Suggestions still appear in the drop-down menu to help you with your search.
Meyer explains that though it may seem like the idea is kind of redundant, ("No one wants search results for [bike h] in the process of searching for [bike helmets]"), Google Instant doesn't actually show you constantly updating search results for exactly what you're typing. Rather it predicts the most likely search and shows you those results. Say you type 'Tom's H' into Google. Google Instant will immediately pull up the results for the most popular search associated with what 'Tom's H.' Google will then show you what results you're looking at, by autocompleting the rest of the search term, with the additional letters in grey.
Check out the example below to see how it works:
Google Instant seems like a simple progression from auto-complete but plenty had to be done behind the scenes to make it possible.
"To bring Google Instant to life, we needed a host of new technologies including new caching systems, the ability to adaptively control the rate at which we show results pages and an optimization of page-rendering JavaScript to help web browsers keep up with the rest of the system," explains Meyer. "In the end, we needed to produce a system that was able to scale while searching as fast as people can type and think—all while maintaining the relevance and simplicity people expect from Google."
Google estimates that the new instant search feature will save users a combined 11 hours per second. Yowza!
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good luck searching for words like "title" with safe search off...
t-i-t-0_0-l-e
...and no more bouncy balls today. What will Google slow down my netbook with tomorrow?
I think I'll just stick with the address bar search in Chrome or the search box in Firefox.
Not a fan so far...
I'm the only one I know so far that this works for hmmm
* This feature only works if you are signed in to your Google account *
Let me guess, more space for ads and less for real results.
I think auto-complete is fast enough, why bother with this? I can't imagine the load this must put on their servers.
I use google for searches and prefer it much more than any other engine, and I think the auto-complete is good enough and very usefull. Although I have an iGoogle page setup for all my weather, tech news, and email all in one place, and this feature doesnt work there.
How much time does this save one person doing one or two searchs?
good luck searching for words like "title" with safe search off...t-i-t-0_0-l-e
I tried that, safe search off and typed in tit
...
first entry was Titanic
then Titp (tea in the park)
then Titan
...
I guess to really have to put an "s" on the end to get what you are looking for...
I shut it off. I didn't like it, though I'm sure it will be useful for other things. So I may turn it back on.
So... If you use it long enough you will get younger. Is this the result of a fountain of youth plugin?
damn, it works well. Really quick too.
even with safe search off its censoring the instant results
i am surprised google did this. think of how many more querys it has to do now. such a feature would cripple any regular web server.
I think this is pretty cool and certainly a natural evolution of the auto-complete concept. I'm sure it will take some time for Google to tweak it and for users to get used to it, but I can see it being useful eventually. They're just always trying to stay ahead of the other search engines (yes, apparently there are others out there).
I like it.
I don't really understand why people are complaining... the auto complete still shows suggestions just as it used to, and once you have typed your whole search the results you see will be the same as if you pressed the search button. At worst it saves you one click of your mouse without changing how you'd normally use the search engine.
Weird what people will bitch and moan about.
Soon Google will be able to display search results for what it thinks you want to search for. . . before you type anything.
I just invented a new way to advertise products. . . win
I honestly freaking LOVE this, it's so much better, regardless of how much of a little progression it was. I can search faster and more efficiently, this is just AWESOME!!
LOL,
having just tried it out for myself, I noticed two things, one of which should really be noted in the article.
The search button has NOT been ditched... it's still there (it's even on the piccie in the article), and most people I expect are used to just hitting enter, which of course still works.
As for safe search, with it off any word that is pornographic doesn't show up as or auto-search result, results show up when you hit enter (or press search) as usual.
Basically all this amounts to is the ability to have auto-show results on or off... big wow. It IS only a small change, the way people are going on you'd think they'd done something major!
Cancel your orders for 5000 crates of bottled water, and put the keys to the bunker back on the shelf, this isn't the end of the world.
and Yahoo! was complaining about Google not being innovative enough???
also I just realised that my work default search page is on google.com, and I use it all the time... I hadn't even realised because I tend to just type my search and hit enter, then look at the results (no, I don't touch type). That's how big a change it is to how you use it, unless looking for it you can completely miss it.
I tried searching for dirty words the page is blank when you have a dirty word typed in the search box. So it wont auto load a bunch of porn sites if you typo or have part of a word typed in like title.
* This feature only works if you are signed in to your Google account *
Thanks for that. Love the feature!
I think auto-complete is fast enough, why bother with this? I can't imagine the load this must put on their servers.
When you can search a trillion web pages for textual information (as of July 2008 Google says of non duplicate indexing), or Google guessing what you want to find...and get the information in less than .20 seconds...I think their servers will be fine...
The problem here is that each time a new letter is typed, a request is sent to the engine and return irrelevant information in most cases. It's better to have the search once after the user has completely written his search keyword then look for the relevant results.
Until it comes to Canada, I can't try it out.
It's ... {pondering} ... unnerving.
* This feature only works if you are signed in to your Google account *
not true
very impressive I like it.
Dudes...
I was thinking to my self how much computacional power Google have....
Maybe in 2020 NASA become near of it...
lol
hehehe