With much fanfare, Google launched Google Instant search: a new way to search before you type. Google Instant looked a completely new way to search. However, Search Engine Land digged a little bit and revealed that Google Instant is not that new. As Google claims, Google Instant may be a fundamental shift in the way we search. but definitely not new as Yahoo! had “Yahoo! Instant Search” as early as 2005 . One can find how Yahoo!’s Instant Search page looked from Archive.org.
Yahoo! looking back at the missed opportunity and its history of Instant Search, says the idea of predicting user’s intended search was first introduced by Yahoo’s Instant feature in 2005. It says the users found it way ahead of time and was too overwhelming for the users. Yahoo! quotes even search engine guru Danny Sullivan thought Yahoo Instant feature was “weird one”.
Although Yahoo Instant search never made it to Yahoo! main search page, Yahoo! expanded it on 2007. Yahoo! says that
In 2007 we expanded on the “Instant Search” function with a new tool on the Yahoo! homepage designed to anticipate a user’s intended search and to offer suggestions. That technology – some call it “Search Suggestions on steroids” – rapidly evolved into “Yahoo! Search Assist” across our primary Search experiences. The intuitiveness of Yahoo! Search Assist technology has been a hit and today, 40% of searches on Yahoo! have taken advantage of the feature.
Ruing how things have changed since 2005, Yahoo says that the average person’s appetite for web content has grown since 2005. Welcoming Google Instant, Yahoo says “We celebrate industry enhancements that build upon past innovation”.
Even there is Bing based Instant search called Real Live Search. It was created in 2009 by Long Zheng, not Microsoft.
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