Google Suggest finally hits site

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 26 Aug 2008 at 16:02

Google's auto complete search feature is ready to "graduate" to the site's main page.

The feature, dubbed Suggest by Google, automatically offers options to auto complete your query as you type, based on the search engine's most popular searches. Typing in Liver, for example, brings up Liverpool fc, the Liverpool echo newspaper and half a dozen other popular search terms.

The feature has been in development in Google's Labs since 2004, but has already appeared on Toolbar, the Firefox search box and Maps. The feature will also be familiar to users of Yahoo, Ask and the recently launched Cuil search engines, which offer similar services.

Among the other benefits of the service, Google claims it will help users to formulate queries when they can't quite put their finger on the word, reduce spelling errors, and save users keystrokes - which will undoubtedly please our own keystroke obsessed Matthew Sparkes.