How to Influence Google AutoSuggest

By Premchand Chandran

AutoSuggest

Start typing in a search, and Google offers suggestions before you’ve even finished typing.

But how does Google come up with those suggestions?

When does Google remove some suggestions?

When does Google decide not to interfere?

& Not everyone sees the same suggestions

This is based on an algorithm and the answer to all the questions are only known by GOOGLE and no one else!!!

Even this man in the world does not know!!!

Various factors may influence these suggestions -

1. Search Volume and searcher location - the number of searches performed for a keyword along with the location of the searchers.

2. Search volume has a heavy influence.

3. Basically if a lot of people from different IP addresses search for the same phrase, Google will make a note of that and will start serving it as a suggestion for all future searches which match that phrase pattern.

Geographic Location

Google Domain (TLD’s)

Personalization (Logged in users)

Since many web users tend to return to similar search topics, it makes sense to incorporate relevant terms into query suggestions. And that's just what Google has done with its Autosuggest feature. It will now take your past searches into consideration only if you are logged into your Google account 

Query Deserves Freshness (QDF)

Context (Citations, Mentions and References)

1. It would be great if there are many mentions of the keyword on the web, crawlable by Google’s spider.

2. This would help Google note that there is some XYZ who specializes in ABC field and frequently writes/blogs about that industry. e.g.: If Prem Chandran is associated with SEO and ORM, then the autosuggestions for keyword ‘Prem Chandran’ should include ‘Prem Chandran SEO’

or ‘Prem Chandran ORM’.

Language

Social Media1. Social Media is booming

nowadays, we should make our presence felt prominently on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ through various means of social media marketing techniques.

2. This could help influence autosuggest if we have a large following on social media platforms. One can concoct ways to get people searching our desired keywords.

3. All main search engines observe social signals (Likes, Re-Tweets, Follows) when determining rankings and this data is certainly available to them when creating search suggestions.

Popularity

Freshness

Google Autocomplete in the News/Legal Stuff

Factors which could help influence AutoSuggest are -

Search volume and searcher location – the amount of searches performed for a keyword along with the location of the searchers

Mentions of the keyword on the Web, crawlable by Google’s spider

Social Media mentions of the keyword on sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+

Be in the news

1. Google Suggest is highly sensitive to Novelty.

2. If there’s a news event, Google would like to give suggestions related to news event for our desired keyword.

3. We can use it to our advantage by coordinating press releases and news events so they lead to a critical mass of searches, which can push down negative suggestions.

Blog frequently1. Blogging will help increase

your presence online, thereby increasing the mentions of the keyword all over the web.

2. It is always good to have blog wherein the posts should be relevant to latest products and services.

3. It is very important to update the blog with fresh content frequently.

4. This will act as a signal for Google to consider this in autosuggestion if many people start reading the blogs and thereby sharing it on social platforms.

Have a Wiki page

Consider having a Wikipedia page that is associated with our brand name. It is good to have a Wiki page of our company comprising detailed information about the services, products, company’s history and about the management team.

Have these keywords in your content which may influence AutoSuggest !!!

The Fortune 500 is made up of the largest companies in the US by gross revenue. There was an analysis done by a team of experts for the Auto-Suggestions for these companies, and the following are the top Auto-Suggestions found based on occurrences – • Brand name + Careers• Brand name + Jobs• Brand name + Wiki• Brand name + Inc• Brand name + Investor Relations• Brand name + Stock• Brand name + Locations• Brand name + News•Brand name + Reviews

If we are able to attain strong presence in these areas, then there is a probability that we may influence Google AutoSuggest!!!

However Google will show only those suggestions which it feels RELEVANT!

Is GOOGLE Completely PERFECT????

Google AutoSuggest can be funny

To this, GOOGLE says –

“In some cases, there may be a search term that seems surprising to you, but after doing some searching on the web, you may discover that it's a popular phrase online for some reason that you didn't anticipate. Queries in autosuggest are algorithmically determined based on a number of factors (including search term popularity) without manual intervention.”

A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE OWNERS OF ALL THE WONDERFUL IMAGES USED IN THIS PRESENTATION. ALL IMAGES WERE SOURCED FROM GOOGLE.