Mar 4, 2011 at 8:26am ET by Matt McGee

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google-autocomplete-test-2

Via Google Operating System comes the screenshot above, which shows a new test Google is running that involves auto-completing search queries.

It’s similar to Google Suggest but, as Google Operating System notes, this auto-completion is happening on long-tail terms where Google Suggest has stopped giving suggestions. I was unable to replicate the test using the same search term shown above.

A Google spokesperson gave us this statement about the test:

At any given time we are running 50-200 search experiments. We run more than 6,000 search experiments in a given year.

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Suggest | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search

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http://braddlibby.wordpress.com Bradd Libby

Google has been testing this now for several weeks, at least. (Google Offering Partial Suggestions)

Whether or not you see this feature seems to depend on which browser you are using. For example, I have seen it with Safari, but never with Firefox.
http://www.blindfiveyearold.com ajkohn

This is an interesting test since it might have an impact on the distribution of terms. The current Instant interface may reduce the number of long-tail or mid-tail terms because people are becoming habituated to selecting one of the autocomplete terms.

So a word autocomplete might make it more acceptable for people to move further out on the tail. If this test is successful and rolled out, you might find more specific queries finding traction. And Google may be better able to populate the primary autocomplete based on these new searches.

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