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Google Suggest Dissected, Part II

Posted by michael on Fri Dec 24, 2004 10:43 AM
from the kudos-for-correct-use-of-complement dept.
Businesses Google The Internet Programming Technology
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."
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Google Suggest Dissected, Part II 50 Comments More /

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  • when will they get it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quasar1999 (520073) on Friday December 24 2004, @10:45AM (#11176506) Journal
    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...
    • On similar note.

      Instead of showing the possible results and its score as you type, I would rather it return the most probable exact single match.

      Anyway, as I tried to type some of the terms I used to search for, they do not appear on the list.

      So, it will be interesting to see how slow it might get if google is to index every single terms out there.

    • Re:when will they get it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Bioanarchism (550560) <michael.feng@frro.net> on Friday December 24 2004, @10:59AM (#11176586) Homepage Journal
      apparently google has better programmers and engineers than most tech companies. it is not only the interesting concepts that they publish, but the courage to invest and experiment thins that are others dare not or rather, they think of as time-consuming.

      how can i, personally, not think of a flash clip which protrayed the merge of google and amazon, to create googlezon, based on google's extensive grid engine. lets hope that wont be an accurate prediction, coz i dun wanna live in a world that has the rest of the world's information at their fingertips.

      and it seems, google is on that path to 'immortality'.
      • A world where 'everyone' has 'instant' access to 'all' the worlds' information may be a world where those who have used our collective ignorance to enslave us will no longer be able to do so. It also would not require 'everyone' to be involved at the same time. Opting out temporarily...or even permanently ( a very small number) would not degrade the system.

  • Funny (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2004, @10:53AM (#11176541)
    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!
    • This is because, like Zeitgeist, Google Suggest is based on things people have actually searched for. OK, so that's a wild guess, but it doesn't make sense any other way.

      • Re:Funny (Score:3, Informative)

        by tdvaughan (582870)
        Are you suggesting that no-one searches for 'porn' on Google? It's more likely that the results are passed through a sanitiser beforehand so that you don't have Google suggesting you look at adult content.
        • Are you suggesting that no-one searches for 'porn' on Google? It's more likely that the results are passed through a sanitiser beforehand so that you don't have Google suggesting you look at adult content.

          As if there are people searching for "Paris Hilton" in a non-adult-content way?
    • First suggestion for each letter/number:

      amazon
      best buy
      cnn
      dictionary
      ebay
      firefox
      games
      hotmai l
      ikea
      jokes
      kazaa
      lyrics
      mapquest
      news
      onl ine dictionary
      paris hilton
      quotes
      recipes
      spybot
      tara reid
      ups
      verizon
      weather
      xbox
      yahoo
      zip codes

      1
      2004 election
      3m
      411
      50 cent
      60 minutes
      7th heaven
      89.com
      911
      02

  • SEO (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FiReaNGeL (312636) <(fireang3l) (at) (hotmail.com)> on Friday December 24 2004, @11:04AM (#11176603) Homepage
    If you're interested in Search Engine Optimization, the tool can be used like the Overture Keyword Selector Tool [overture.com]. Similar results are obtained with both, which is interesting all in itself. A guy built an interface [hooznet.com] 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 :)
    • Wow!! A couple of days ago I was doing some Googling for cable modem help (new subscriber and it's not working yet :( ). Anyway, I typed ca into the www.hooznet.com/suggest site and it popped up my exact search phrase!

      cable modem problem "return path" pending

      This is too creepy...

      Then again, maybe it was just looking in my browser cache or something. Can someone out there try it and let me know what you get?

        • Damn it! How could I be such a noob! :/ You are correct of course. I just tried it on my "other" browser (I.E.) and it didn't work the same way.

          Firefox is even cooler now than before! :)

  • we're not all one big group (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24 2004, @11:07AM (#11176626)
    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?

  • Google Suggest is easy! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MicroBerto (91055) on Friday December 24 2004, @11:08AM (#11176629)
    As big as the web is, it's just the same boring drivel over and over... it shouldn't be too hard to make Google Suggest! :)

  • Unexpected Ways (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RmanB17499 (829438) on Friday December 24 2004, @11:12AM (#11176653)
    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.
    • Interesting. I tried "5424" but all I got is "5424000000000000". I wonder if there are any valid credit card numbers on there. Can you say "potential privacy violation"?

    • Re:Unexpected Ways (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Quixote (154172)
      Here's a web page where someone wrote a script to see what package numbers are coughed up by Google: enjoy! [buffalo.edu].
    • I'm personally a fan of typing in 0x to see what Windows error messages are the most common.

      Of course, one of the results is someone using the Google calculator, which just goes to show that lots of interesting stuff can be seen by using Google Suggest.
  • Quite amusingly, a number of words seem to be censored... It you type, say, sex, then you have no more suggestions... Even, if you type it within a word...
    • It's easy to find whatever you want with Suggest. Overly broad terms don't make it into the list. Why should they? Each term shows how many results would be retrieved. Searching for "sex" or "porn" will return more digits than can fit.
      • But words like "Essex", "Sussex", and "Scunthorpe" are also missing.

        The first two are English counties, and the other is an English town. All of these have been mistakenly binned by over zealous filters in the past.

        Apparently North Lincolnshire Council blocked all emails with Scunthorpe in them at one point. As Scunthorpe is in North Lincolnshire, quite a lot of emails were wrongly blocked.

  • Next Step (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mahesh_gharat (633793)
    After some period Google will not only suggest but will also take decisions for you!

    wait....

    Isn't "I'm Feeling Lucky" option takes a decision for you?

  • Weird thing about Google Suggest... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tommertron (640180) * on Friday December 24 2004, @11:14AM (#11176659) Homepage Journal
    ... it doesn't include dirty words. I know, I may be a little immature, but it's almost always the first thing I try on anything like this. There's not even a way of turning 'safe suggest' on or off or anything. Even such innocuous (and popular!) words like 'nude' aren't suggested. What if you're searching for nude models for your art class, or the great nudes? It's just interesting... Google is becoming very corporate in terms of filtering out content these days.

  • Who searches for these things?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stevejsmith (614145) on Friday December 24 2004, @11:23AM (#11176696) Homepage
    a: amazon
    b: best buy
    c: cnn

    WHO THE FUCK SEARCHES FOR THOSE THINGS?? It amazes me how stupid people are - rather than type in amazon.com, bestbuy.com, or cnn.com, they actually search for them on Google.
    • Well, you can enter in "amazon" into the firefox (and probably other browsers) address bar, hit enter and it will do a "I'm Feeling Lucky" search on google for it, I do that a lot, I'm very lazy.

    • Re:Who searches for these things?? (Score:4, Informative)

      by kentmartin (244833) * on Friday December 24 2004, @11:32AM (#11176729) Homepage
      One thing that may bump up the stats on these sorts of things is Firefox.

      Oftentimes I just punch just enough into the address bar to hit what I want, knowing that Firefox wanders off to google and does an "I'm feeling lucky" if it cannot resolve my input. ie, ipw2200 will always take me to ipw2200.sourceforge.net.

      Just a thought.
    • Here's a complete list (credit given to mrn121 [slashdot.org]):

      A - Amazon
      B - Best Buy
      C - CNN
      D - Dictionary
      E - eBay
      F - FireFox
      G - Games
      H - Hotmail
      I - Ikea
      J - Jokes
      K - Kazaa
      L - Lyrics
      M - Mapquest
      N - News
      O - Online Dictionary
      P - Paris Hilton
      Q - Quotes
      R - Recipes
      S - Spybot
      T - Tara Reid
      U - UPS
      V - Verizon
      W - Weather
      X - XBox
      Y - Yahoo
      Z - Zip Codes

      From this comment [slashdot.org], again credit given to to mrn121 [slashdot.org].
    • Try "www" and despair.

    • Nielson Usability (Score:5, Informative)

      by lxt (724570) on Friday December 24 2004, @12:44PM (#11177132) Journal
      If I remember correctly, I remember reading in one of Jacob Nielson's usability books about how a surprisingly large majority of users thought (this was back in the day before Google) that the Yahoo search field "was the internet". They typed everything into it, and payed no attention to the adress bar.
  • It will show "penthouse", but not "playboy".
  • in the early days of the internet, people were posting all sorts of websites on all sorts of topics. as the web became more commercialized, most geeks were (rightfully) worried that major commercial hubs would be created that would attract the majority of attention and dilute the importance of the more peripheral areas of the web. this trend is already underway, and tools such as google suggest will hasten the decline. users will be directed to the areas that most people are already going, thereby increa

  • better address? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by earthstar (748263)
    When will Google suggest get a better address than this one?
    http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

    that long address wont help anyone.

    Even if it is in beta.

  • found one use (Score:2, Informative)

    by earthstar (748263)
    Today , finally found a use for google suggest. Lets say some weird news [ or rather a 'hushed' news ] has broken out.Then when you type only some word about it ,then you get to see, under which combination of words , maximum number of results have been obtained.

    The suggested words by themselves may not be all that useful,but when combined with the number of results shown for each keyword ,I think it can be useful.

    Google suggest may not be immediately be of use to everyone like Google.com,but will rather

  • Hi guys, I just finished implementing Google suggest for a dictionary database. http://www.objectgraph.com/dictionary The code is clean and you could see it by using "View Source" The dictionary database is on an SQL server (total of 18000+ words) with an index on the word column.

      • Re:Now that they have Google Suggest (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Why does that annoy you? For those of us who can't spell, it's quite helpful.

        You could have put some effort into that statement. How about

        Wy doz that annoi yu? For thoze ov us hu kant spel, its kwite helpfle.

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