Yahoo Suggests

As Yahoo notes, this isn’t new, but it’s new to Yahoo: get search suggestions as you type. Yes, it’s a lot like Google Suggest, and the suggestion tools featured on both Google and Yahoo Firefox search boxes.

Among the obvious differences between Google Suggest and Yahoo’s new Search Suggest: Yahoo seems to be more concerned with a head match, though not exclusively. Yahoo doesn’t give result numbers, but are they really that useful anyway? Gotta give Yahoo props, though, for putting it on the main index, which is still far more bold than Google’s use of the tool.

Kevin Lee of Yahoo would like your feedback. I’d like your screenshots. Here are mine, inspired by a recent Google suggestion:

Will it shorten your search time? Maybe, but probably not by a ton (unless you’ll be spending 10 minutes trying to figure out how to spell Schwarzeneggar).

But the fact that Yahoo would tout a feature that is designed to shave seconds off your time on the site might actually be a good thing—realizing that when you’re performing a search, the search engine isn’t supposed to be your destination. Are they sacrificing their time spent metric? Perhaps. Will it be worth it? Perhaps.