Comments on: Google’s new search feature

By: Sam, South Gate, California

Sam, South Gate, California — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:59:09 +0000

I am going to stop using google:
Reason: It is not user friendly. It forces suggestions in the search box. It does not permit the user to the on/off option.

By: Joe orlando FL

Joe orlando FL — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:57:18 +0000

People Want to learn I agree, but I doubt people will take a course no matter how convenient it may be to learn more about how to use Google. Instead I think Google should simply make more tools that are automaticly used in the Google search engine.

By: Jeff Seattle WA.

Jeff Seattle WA. — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:20:22 +0000

I don’t think users don’t want to do more work. I think users are lacking the knowledge of all of the techniques that are built into Google. Or even that these techniques exist. Users are happy to do this work if they knew about it.

To counter this problem, we developed a company called Boost eLearning. We now offer an elearning course, Google Search Training.

This type of training might be the best direction for people to find what they are looking for.

By: Gene Inverness, FL

Gene Inverness, FL — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:50:44 +0000

I’d rather be able to turn it on or off myself. Too many things are already being forced on us.
Without having to login to do so!

By: JAy., Houston, TX

JAy., Houston, TX — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:30:09 +0000

The biggest improvement that the article describes is not the ability to suggest popular searches that start with what you are typing (as Yahoo! does), but rather to be able to catch spelling errors as you type. This would be groundbreaking, as I haven’t seen Yahoo! or Ask get this into their system yet.

By: Akcje, Cmpbll, CA

Akcje, Cmpbll, CA — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:26:24 +0000

Unfortunately, neither Google nor any other search engine works when the term you search for has non alpha characters.

It would be nice to have back the old, advanced Alta vista which allowed to search for an exact string, even if not alpha characters.

Also the old Alta Vista regular expressions are gone from all engines, except for simple AND/OR

By: Joe, Rochester, NY

Joe, Rochester, NY — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:34:54 +0000

Yep, I’ve had thing turned on for the longest time. It was in Google Labs *yeaaaaars* back, and I’ve had it turned on by default with a Firefox add-on for maybe a year. It actually is pretty helpful.

>> “Both Yahoo (YHOO) and Ask.com (IACI) have been providing “magic” for some time. But so far that hasn’t helped attract much traffic from Google (GOOG).

>>”Since Yahoo launched the Search Assist feature 13 months ago, its search market share has dropped 3%, according to comScore.”

Yep, I’ve been using Google Suggest for much longer than 13 months. Much longer.

By: YL, Los Angeles, CA

YL, Los Angeles, CA — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:18:23 +0000

Nope, sorry. The author is right. Yahoo and Ask have both had this feature for quite some time now. Whereas, Google just launched it.

By: ucihonors

ucihonors — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:58:42 +0000

Google Suggest is not new. It’s been around for about 4 years, I think. Having it on the main search page by default maybe new, but saying Yahoo and Ask.com have had it longer is just plain false.

Google’s had this in beta for four years through Labs. It’s also been available on the iPhone, on IE 7 toolbar and Firefox 2/3, and as well as select countries like Russia, India, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and S. Korea. But this week marks the first time Google’s brought it to its homepage as a default. Thanks for your comment, Brian. – Yi-Wyn Yen