May I Suggest…
…A faster way to find what you’re looking for. Introducing Search Suggest on Yahoo.com.
It works like this: When you do a search on Yahoo!, you’ll automatically be given suggestions based on what you have typed – as you’re typing. 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’re looking for quicker. Search Suggest isn’t new, just new to Yahoo.com. We launched this feature in the Yahoo! Toolbar in Firefox a while back and you can get it directly from the Firefox 2 search box when you select Yahoo! as your search engine.
Let’s say I’m trying to keep up with our illustrious “governator” here in California. I type “arnold s” in the search box and the suggestions pop up Arnold Schwarzenegger, which saves me from trying to spell out his last name. Or, I’m watching TV and wonder what song is in the background of a commercial that just came on. Problem is that I only remember part of the company name, “journey diamond”. I type it into our new search box, and “journey diamond jewelry commercial song” is suggested right away – problem solved. Of course, the assistance it provides when I attempt to find some new bicycle tires, “mavic ksyrium” just after the first few letters, “mavic k” is much appreciated. Not only does the feature eliminate my embarrassment of misspellings, it makes for a much more efficient search experience.
The nice thing about the suggestions is that they’re not obtrusive, so if you already know what you’re searching for, you can overlook the suggestions without them getting in your way. But, when you experience those brain dead moments like we all do, it’s the type of feature that just might get things moving again. If you don’t like change, you can turn it off altogether by simply selecting “disable” in the bottom right corner of the drop down menu. And, if you’re having regrets, you can reinstall it by selecting “more” above the search box.
Try it out and let me know what you think in the comments.
UPDATE: Thank you for all of your feedback. We appreciate you working with us and apologize for any annoyances you’ve experienced with the “disable” feature while we’ve been working on a fix. As noted in the comments below, the bug has been fixed, so you should be able to disable the Search Suggest feature without any problems. Please keep us informed if the problem persists.
Kevin Lee
Yahoo! Search
Good tool – Submitted this to digg – hope it spreads the message and gets you thousands of new users.
- This is going to be especially helpful to those who are not yet sophisticated searchers.
How did this work out when debuting it on AlltheWeb?
http://digg.com/tech_news/YAHOO_Debuts_AJAX_Search_Suggestions_While_You_TYPE
Gotta love the suggestion tool. Always a good way to develop an initial keyword list..
Tried it. Very good indeed! This feature should have been implemented a long time ago.
I want to permanently disable this. I click disable. Every time I open yahoo, it is enabled automatically. How do I stop this?
Regarding the previous commenter’s inability to use the disable feature – I suspect that your browser may be set to discard cookies. We remember that you have disabled the feature by setting a cookie, so if you aren’t accepting cookies, we can’t keep track of the fact that you turned suggestions off.
I have internet privacy set to medium and the search feature re-enables each time yahoo is launched.
Fix this ASAP or you lose me to google.
Awesome feature; Yahoo! Search is becoming great every day.
Regarding the previous commenter’s inability to use the disable feature – You should enable “Accept Cookies in your browser”
One major issue I have found in this is that it seems to be based on terms people have searched for and not actual relevent results. So say in the past an employer searched for your name, now your name will be a search suggestion if someone types something close to it. Better yet if someone searched for your name plus other terms…like “bob smith beer”, or “bob smith drunk”…now Yahoo Search will suggest those terms anytime “bob smith” is typed in to the search box (even though there are no relevent results). Many people do searches like I mentioned above on their own name to make sure there is nothing on the internet that say a prospective employer could find. Now a search you did yourself could come back to kick you when yahoo suggests it to anyone who types something close to your name. If I were an employer and I was typing in someones name…and yahoo suggested their name plus say beer, or drunk…I would think twice…even if there were no relevent results. This may not be a big deal to people with common names…but if you have a pretty unique name it could suck bad.
Google’s tool seem to suggest terms based on how many times a keyword appears in their directory. This on the other hand seems to suggest anything that someone may have randomly typed in over the past. I think it is a good tool…but the basic logic where it pulls results from is way off.
Thank you good share.Every time I open yahoo, it is enabled automatically. How do I stop this?
good work
good work
Thank you Kevin Lee good topic
I wish to permanently disable this infernal search suggestion, and everytime I try, it informs me that it is. However, every time I start typing, the search helper kicks in.
Very annoying. A fix is needed, or I’m using another search engine.
FYI, cookies are enabled.
This is a great little tool. Very intuitive, and saves a lot of time – especially when you are typing in a long, but popular word or name – Thank you!
This search engine, while advantageous to some, is nothing but a pain in my backside. I want to disable this feature, and every time I go in to “Save” my settings, it already confirms that it will “Never” show the suggestions, yet they keep continually popping up.
Yes, I have cookies enabled. How do I permanently disable this annoying feature once and for all? My patience is running thin, and am about ready to switch search engines.
J.
I started to use Yahoo as a search engine when Yahoo Toolbar made search suggest available. Since then I have been waiting for Yahoo website to bring this cool feature. Now I use it almost everyday for it makes searching easy and cool.
i am enjoying. thanks yahoo.
What about the Google toolbar, Yahoo never what I think on another topic never even came up against not. However, Microsoft will allow it to merge with. Thank you, my friends.
I love the search suggest, speeds up my querying. To the person above it is a simple matter to find out how to permanently disable it, how about you yahoo it.
Thank you good share.Every time I open yahoo,
it is enabled automatically. How do I stop this?