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Harmful Google Search Suggestions exists on the iPhone too. Notice how every suggestion in the list points to the wrong place. This is harmful to our business. We are not the only company affected by this.
Google Search Suggestion is a useful feature. We use this feature often and rely on it for corrections; mostly spelling corrections. Typos are frequent, and this corrective suggestion process is often a daily spelling joy. However it is bad to lose customers when the Google Suggestion process drives away the originally intended search.
This is the most harmful search suggestion scenario.
Notice that every effort by Google Search is placed on driving
traffic away from the originally intended search term.
Each search result is unrelated to the
Could this be an issue with Google Instant Search? We recommend trying this with your company's name to make sure a similar problem does not exist. Test with as many devices and web browsers as you have available to you.
It appears that the Hard Coded Bias In Google Search Results truely exists as this slashdot article explains last Friday November 19th. We tried to use a comma in the search, however Google continued to supply inaccurate suggestions to the searcher.
The slashdot article continues by explaining "Queries in other categories provide links to not only Google services but also their preferred partners." Google claims it does not bias its results. Edelman cites a 2007 admission from Google's Marissa Mayers that they placed Google Finance at the top of the results page, calling it 'only fair' because they made the search engine.
We ran into this similar article claiming to have found New Evidence for Google Search Bias Relevance. Google appears to favor in-house tech. And Google does this by flooding their search pages with pointers and recommendations and corrections. This will harm businesses.
Humor is found when Google's Suggestions are off color and slightly entertaining. Here are 25 Funny Google Search Suggestions examples of funny recommendations. Another link to the Funniest Google Suggest Results shows additional samples of humorous search suggestion behavior.
