Like Google, Yahoo wants to offer inline search suggestions to you while you’re performing a search. “Google Suggest” as it’s called, was introduced as a lab project while Yahoo’s new addition is called “Search Suggest.” The idea behind both is that your searching experience will be faster and you’ll find what you’re looking for quicker with the help of their suggestions.
By default, Yahoo’s Search Suggest will be enabled. A second or two after you start typing your query, Yahoo will display suggestions. If by chance you don’t like it, you can disable it by clicking “more” and then clicking “disable search suggestions.”
Google Blogoscoped has a nice comparison of what Google returns versus what Yahoo returns. You’d think that the suggestions would be similar, however some of them are actually quite different. By typing “paris,” you get the obvious first suggestion of “paris hilton” from both Google and Yahoo, but the additional results from Google tend to be more relevant while the Yahoo suggestions weren’t. Yahoo’s suggestions always take a bit longer to start appearing as well.
New Poll
Now that both Google and Yahoo offer search suggestions, do/will you use them? Usually if I’m performing a search, I know exactly what I’m wanting to search for, so the suggestions are useless. I remember trying out Google’s Suggest feature when it first launched, and I must admit, I’m not a fan.
So with that, Do you use inline search suggestions?
- Yes, I Use Google’s.
- Yes, I will use Yahoo’s.
- No, they are useless to me!
Let us know! Vote in the right sidebar.
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Sometimes I find the suggest feature useful – if it predicts a long search it means I can just hit enter straight away and get there without typing. It’s more useful when it puts in a search from your search history – not only is this also useful, but it reminds me that I’ve done this search before, meaning I’m more likely to bookmark what I find as I may need it again.
I don’t really find myself using these suggestions. In Firefox I only use the suggestions to complete quick mathematical conversions for me since it will show the result right there without me having to visit a page.
I was never a big fan of search suggestions. They seem distracting for some reason.
I agree Chris. If I’m searching, I usually know exactly what I am searching for so the suggestions just get in the way.