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Google Suggest Dissected, Part II

Posted by michael on from the kudos-for-correct-use-of-complement dept.

Bert690 writes "To complement the recent dissection of Google Suggest's innovative front end, I investigated [Coral Link & mirror] the back end of the system in an effort to determine just how it generates suggestions. Along with some preliminary findings, you'll find a pointer to a program for enumerating all possible suggestions from a given starting point. I found the number of possible suggestions to be surprisingly small considering the immense scope of the web."

7 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. when will they get it? by Quasar1999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not the amount of data that a program references to create a result, it's the precision of it's result that matters... if it can do it with relatively little data, then it was designed/implemented by someone who knows what they're doing...

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    Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
    1. Re:when will they get it? by WesG · · Score: 5, Funny

      How about a Slashdot Suggest - it would score your article as you type it :-)

      yay

  2. Funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Press "p" and the first thing "google suggests" is "Paris Hilton", hmm. Although on a cooler note when yopu press "f" the first suggestion is firefox!

  3. SEO by FiReaNGeL · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you're interested in Search Engine Optimization, the tool can be used like the Overture Keyword Selector Tool. Similar results are obtained with both, which is interesting all in itself. A guy built an interface similar to Overture to use with Google Suggest.

    Other than that I can't think of a real use... I usually know what I want to search for on Google. It could help optimize queries I guess (see the "number" of results before hitting submit, but not the quality...)

    Happy Holidays to all Slashdotters, by the way :)

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  4. we're not all one big group by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google needs to remember the last x queries that we submitted and the time we submitted them to better guess what we're looking for. If I hit 'p' I get Paris Hilton even though previous searches were for perl, parrot and pascal.

    When will they work out that there are different classes of users out there that look for different things at different times?

  5. Unexpected Ways by RmanB17499 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like trying to use Google Suggest in unexpected ways: Try typing in 1ZE and see all the UPS tracking numbers that come up. Pick one and track it. Or try typing an area code with a large population (201, 212, 213, 818, etc) and maybe add a digit or two and see what telephone numbers people have been searching for lately.

  6. Re:Don't think so... by IO+ERROR · · Score: 5, Funny
    Going by that, entering 'B' would bring up Brittney Spears, while in reality, it brings up Best Buy...

    That's because nobody can spell Britney Spears correctly.

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    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?