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2007

Yahoo Reads Mind With Search Suggestion

July 13, 2007 0

If you are a Yahoo user, you will never need to know how to spell “Cucamonga” again.

A faster way to find what you are looking for at — Search Suggest on Yahoo.com.

Yahoo has kicked off its Search Suggest feature, designed to save users time by offering suggestions they can click on Thursday, according to Yahoo Search Blog.

When you do a search on Yahoo!, you will automatically be given suggestions based on what you have typed – as you are typing.

Now, when you start typing a search query on Yahoo’s default search page, a drop-down list of suggested terms will appear below what you have typed so far. Start typing “cuca” and you will see suggestions for searches related to Rancho Cucamonga, California.

So, not only does this limit the number of words you need to type into a query, it may also present similar queries to shorten your searching time and get to what you are looking for quicker.

Now if a user types in “zoo elephant jungle” will receive assistance on the first three words, but after typing in a couple words, Search Suggest fades away and leaves users on its own.

Nonetheless, this technology is not new — users of Yahoo’s browser toolbar have had access to the suggest-as-you-type feature since the downloadable add-on was updated in March, 2007 — but the addition to the default Yahoo search page is significant.

Yahoo dabbled with a suggestible-search feature as far back as 2005, which was tagged as “Instant Search,” according to a posting in TechCrunch, which was quick to note the arrival of Yahoo Search Suggest.

And Yahoo itself points out that it launched this Search Suggest feature for its Yahoo Toolbar in Firefox last March. Users are also able to use Search Suggest in Firefox when Yahoo is selected as the search engine.

Rival search engine Google has a version of the same tech, but rather than place it on the default page, Google keeps its suggested search tool at an experimental Labs URL.

Notably, Firefox users have been able to enjoy Google’s search suggestions inside the browser’s default toolbar search for over a year.

However, if you do not like Yahoo’s new search feature, you can turn it off altogether by simply selecting “Disable” option included in the bottom right corner of the drop down menu. And, if you are having regrets, you can reinstall it by selecting “more” above the search box.