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So, what criteria does Google use to pick the results that appear in the auto-suggest dropdown when you type a query?
While most SEO insiders I've talked to agree that auto-suggest results have much to do with current search term popularity, others think that additional factors carry more weight in the algorithm. When a client's name shows up low in auto-suggest, for example, they suspect that optimizing that company's website and beefing up the link authority might bump its name up a few spots on the list.
Personally, I'm in the camp that thinks auto-suggest results are almost exclusively influenced by current search popularity. But a little test I did recently left me surprised at just how quickly Google updates its auto-suggest results to reflect current search trends.
On Tuesday night, much of the nation (including yours truly) was following a special election in Massachusetts to fill the senate seat left vacant when Ted Kennedy passed away. I suspected that a large number of people across the country were querying Google to find out what times the polls closed in that state, and decided to see if the auto-suggest results would reflect that trend.
At 7:30 PM EST, just a half hour before the polls closed in the Bay State, I started typing the query "what time do the polls close in Massachusetts" in the Google search box. If figured the auto-suggest would present my intended query eventually, but was surprised to see it pop up in the second spot after only typing the six letters "what ti." To see what I mean, check out the screenshot that I took below.
The small number of characters that I typed to produce the correct auto-suggest, and the fact that it appeared so high on the list, suggests to me that Google was indeed handing back a list of results based on what people were searching for at that time. (Apparently more searchers were interested in what time it was; do that many people really use Google to check the clock?)
The second part of my experiment really convinced me that close-to-real-time search term trends play a big role in auto-suggest results. This part was simple: a few hours later, when it became clear that candidate Scott Brown had defeated Martha Coakley and won the election, I went back to Google and started typing the same query again.
The result? Suddenly, "what time do the polls close in Massachusetts" was nowhere to be found in the auto-suggest list, even when I had typed out most of my query. As soon as people across the country stopped asking Google that question, the algorithm yanked it from the list.
Of course, there are a few other variables that I could be overlooking: a higher click-through rate for specific auto-suggest results could end up bumping it to a higher spot on the list, I suppose. But the results of my Massachusetts election test make me even more certain that search engine optimization does absolutely nothing to affect auto-suggest results.
So, what do you think? Leave a comment below and let us know any observations you've made about the Google auto-suggest feature that might shed further light on the variables they use.
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