Google Auto Suggestion Search Type Ahead

It seems that for the past couple of months Google has been experimenting with their auto suggestion search feature on the homepage, Google.com. Last year we saw a move towards an auto suggestion similar to what Yahoo! and Ask.com had been doing with their type ahead keyword suggestions. Now Google has gone one step further in not only making the extensions of key phrases or terms in bold, but bringing their Universal search matches to the top of the list as seen in the screenshot below.

The auto suggest results don't appear on for every ip address and seem to be tested only during certain times. It seems as though only time will tell if this auto suggestion becomes a permanent part of Google's new search tool.

What seems to be causing this is (1) a substantial amount of searches per month using these terms and (2) a basic auto suggestion setting that auto suggests suffixes for stems of words or what we call long tail keywords. This doesn't necessarily mean that Google is evaluating the quality of the search term or even whether the term leads to a click. In fact, Google Adwords Keyword Tool indicates that there is a reverse correlation.

Take the term "guaranteed seo" for example. That terms returns 3,600 in local search volume and 5,400 in global search volume and 99% Advertiser Competition. In contrast, the first auto suggestion, "guaranteed seo services," has no local search volume, 50% Advertiser Competition, but does have 14,800 global search volume. The second auto suggestion, "guaranteed seo results," has no local search volume, only 46 global searches, and 25% Advertiser Competition. This would tend to indicate that Google's type ahead is really based on nothing at all.

Keywords: Google auto suggestion