Google: More Freshness in Every Query

Yesterday Google announced updates to their query recommendation algorithm that will process newer information in a more timely manner.

I tried a few searches for items that have recently been in the news and the results were good - for example, a search for "Iowa" recommended "Iowa Flooding". The same search, however, also recommended "Iowa DOT." I suppose the state department of transportation would be in high demand given the recent flooding, but seeing that recommendation is occurs to me that what's missing from these suggestions is context.

It would be helpful to the searcher is Google could present some bits of information indicating why a given search term is being suggested. Here's another example - I searched for "Father's Day" and among the suggested queries was "Father's Day, 2007." As a searcher, it's unclear to me why I should be interested in Father's Day from last year. Providing some of the deterministic data along with these recommendations would help me understand the relevance of this recommendation to my intentions. After all, relevance is what Google is all about.

Comments

[Gordon Clare]

The relevance of Fathers Day 2007 is possibly that Fathers Day 2008 has not occurred and just Fathers Day is non-specific ergo, they furnished the latest one. HOWS about that MR NitPicker