Searching without a query

Posted by Sep Kamvar, Engineering Lead for Personalization

You already know that search is at the core of everything we do: we want to deliver useful and relevant information every time you do a search. But what about when you don't have a query in mind, or if you just don't feel like typing in a query? Today we're releasing two features that reduce the need for you to type in specific queries to get the information you want. Both of these are available to Search History users.

The first is a recommendations button on the Google Toolbar that looks like a pair of dice. Click on the dice, and we'll take you to a site that may be interesting to you based on your past searches. If you want another, just click the dice again and we'll show you a new one. We'll give you up to 50 new sites per day that might be of interest. Just add the button to your Toolbar. (In order to use this feature, you need the latest version of the Toolbar.)

If you prefer to get your information at a glance, we've added a recommendations tab that you can add to your personalized homepage. Simply click on "Add A Tab" on your Google Personalized Homepage, and type in "Recommendations" for the tab name (keep the "I'm feeling lucky" checkbox checked). We'll give you a page of recommendations that are updated daily.

Don't expect very much at the beginning, but the more you build up your search history, and the more you use these features, the better they'll become. Over time, we will give you more and better recommendations.