Monday, January 03, 2005

Matt Cutts On Google Suggests

Today I used the new Google Suggests tool to perform a vanity check on my name. When typing in "Jason Dow" I soon realized that the results for the tool weren't in alphabetical order or ordered by the number of search results associated with each search term. I quickly read over the faqs looking for an explanation and couldn't find one. Even the Google Groups thread about the tool didn't shed any light on my curiosity.

So I went to the source and asked Matt Cutts how the sort order is generated. Here's his response, quoted with his permission.

"I don't have much extra information on Google Suggest, but I know that suggestions aren't based on personal search history, according to http://labs.google.com/suggest/faq.html . I wouldn't be surprised if the order of the suggestions is determined by how often searches were queried at some point in the past. I'm basing that off this quote from the FAQ: 'For example, Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers.'"

So there you have it, directly from the horse's mouth.

Posted By Jason Dowdell at 10:31 PM
Permanent Link: Matt Cutts On Google Suggests | Comments (0)

Post a Comment

Name:
Email:
WebSite:
Comment:
Remember Me
Subscribe