It’s not by any means a revolutionary feature, and to be honest, it’s probably not even something that you’ll use once a day. Still, the introduction of related search suggestions to Google News seems like a solid idea.
After searching for any term, users will now see six related searches at the bottom of the results pages. Sometimes there’s an obvious A-to-B connection; sometimes not. Either way, the feature is useful as a sort of general-interest, just-browsing aid.
Google News Suggests Other Searches
It’s also handy as a spelling tool. Blame America’s school system, its center-of-the-world culture, or my poor brain, but I find some Morgan Tsvangirai’s name tricky. On the Google News Blog, Nilesh Agrawal, Sharad Jain, and Deepa Iyer demonstrate that a search for “zimbabwe” provides it as a ready-to-click suggestion.
The three Googlers note, too, “As is normal for Google News, there are no human editors involved in selecting related searches; these suggestions are automatically generated based on an algorithm to determine terms related to your search.” So try not to be offended if anything odd pops up.
Really, though, the only thing that seems “wrong” about the related search feature is its low placement on the results pages. Google’s got something good here, and it deserves to be more visible than all the “add a custom section” and “add a news gadget” plugs.
