October 7, 2007 and August 25, 2008 are dates that will likely be heralded as landmark achievements in user experience, yet live in infamy for our online independence. That is when Yahoo publicly launched Search Assist and Google Suggest graduated from Labs to the Google homepage. Suddenly search engines began finishing our sentences — or at least our keyword queries.
Web browsers had already begun implementing auto fill features to assist users with entering the same data in forms over and over. And so from a product manager perspective, the auto complete feature applied to a search engine makes complete sense. Indeed, the original Google Suggest remains a very useful research tool and has even been the subject of a few short studies. People don’t always know what they are looking for, and who better to ask for suggestions than like-minded searchers around the world?
It is also in the best interests of search engines to promote this feature heavily. Trim the long tail of queries to get eyeballs all on the same phrases and that will force advertisers to bid higher on a smaller set of keywords. Reduce the number of unique queries being searched upon and you speed up response time.
However, I think it is a mistake to enable it by default for everyone. Why?
To use a more recent version of Google’s own example from their announcement, let’s say I am looking for a certain San Francisco newspaper. I start typing San Francisco…, and the top suggestion is for the Chronicle.
Perhaps I was going to go elsewhere or was trying to think of another publication. However, I just want to check something quickly or maybe I’m lazy today and I click on the Chronicle. Boom. The Examiner and Bay Guardian never had a chance. I don’t even get to a search results page where I can pick from other media outlets in San Francisco.
Search engines are edging into the business of changing user behavior rather than simply providing information. Thought search engine optimization was tough? Try manipulating social consciousness.
Of course some results change naturally over time. For instance, the San Francisco marathon is not currently on the list since it is four months away. I am sure it will appear once summer rolls around.
However, how will this work for a less popular term that starts generating enough queries for a few auto suggest options?
Let’s see what happens when I want to recommend one of my favorite authors to a female friend of mine. She begins to search for Alain de Botton b…
Wait, you mean Alain de Botton is bald? I had no idea. I just wanted to find his book! Now my friend in search of a man with a full head of hair won’t even give him a chance. (Sorry, Alain!) That’s not all, though. Something even worse could happen. Suppose my friend actually clicks that suggestion. This seemingly harmless action will reinforce the popularity of that search, and thereby makes its continued presence in the auto suggest box a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I tried to use a lighthearted example, but there many others. Some have become (in)famous because the suggestions are often funny, political, or even racist. Unfortunately for many people, vaunted brands, and our own individuality, it appears to be here to stay. And Google’s very nice public service announcement on the importance of managing your online reputation does nothing to address the aforementioned problem of auto suggest.
One only needs to ask the first lady. Just start typing Michelle Obama into Google and you will see what I mean. Four months ago, the offending site removed the racist material which caused the original spike in traffic last year. However, the keyword suggestion still appears in the short list of popular terms. This behavior is even harder to root out than Googlebombing because it fuels itself. Now that is a public relations nightmare!
Sure, as an individual user, you can turn the feature off by clicking the upper right link in either Google or Yahoo to edit your settings. Yet like so many other features recently, we were all opted-in whether we wanted to be or not. Of course the majority of users will never bother to change it, let alone think of the unintended consequences. Before long, people will forget that there was any other way.
Google’s stated goal is to organize the world’s information. Yahoo wants to make the Internet all about you. What this does, however, is more like organizing your ideas along with the rest of the world.
Call me crazy, but this seems like another good intention paving the road to tyranny. Separate tools for researchers to find aggregate statistics such as Google Suggest or Insights are quite impressive and certainly worthy endeavors. Yet once every search is auto suggested and ordered by popularity, outliers will start being highlighted for the possibility of thoughtcrime. And, if nothing else, we are all one step closer to groupthink.
Not that I would ever want to suggest this :)
