Programmable Search Engine Blog
The latest news, updates and tips from the Programmable Search Engine team
Autocompletion of queries in Custom Search
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
One of the most requested features for Custom Search is autocompletion of queries. Today,
we announced at Google I/O
that you can now enable query autocompletions for your search engine.
The screenshot below shows an example of query autocompletion at
Travelocity
.
Custom Search autocompletion is similar to what you see on Google.com—optional queries appear as you type your query in the search box. However, behind the scenes, we do a lot of things differently. We created a different algorithm that uses data from multiple sources, including queries to your search engine, as well as keywords and phrases extracted automatically from the content of websites that your search engine covers.
Because the autocompleted queries are based, in part, on the specific content of the webpages covered by your search engine, we will
not
generate autocompletions for custom search engines that search the entire web, i.e., autocompletions will only work if you set your preferences to
Search only included sites
in the control panel.
To enable autocompletions, select
Enable autocompletions
in the Basics tab of the control panel.
After you’ve saved your settings, replace the code for the search box in your website with the search box code from the
Get code
tab and you're done. Please note that it can take a few hours for us to start generating autocompletion queries for your search engine.
If you are using the Custom Search Element with a
theme
, the autocompletions are styled to match the look and feel of your theme. Autocompletions will also work on high-end
mobile devices
.
We hope that you find the feature useful. As always, give us
feedback
so we can improve the feature.
Posted by: Bartlomiej Niechwiej and Jeffrey Scudder,
Software Engineers
Archive
2024
Apr
2023
Dec
Oct
Jun
2022
Aug
Jul
Jun
Feb
2021
Apr
Jan
2020
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jun
Apr
2019
Jul
Jun
Apr
2018
Jul
2017
Jul
Feb
2014
Mar
2013
Dec
Oct
Sep
Mar
Jan
2012
Aug
Jun
May
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Useful links
Programmable Search Engine
Help Center
Support Forum
Developer Documentation
Google AdSense Blog
