Related Searches: Is this new?

[skitzzo]

Am I completely dense or is this related searches thing at the bottom of many google searches new?

[Wit]

Never seen that (yet).

<off topic> What extension are you using, the one that coughs up the sky blue bar with the Y! and MSN SEO links?

[skitzzo]

<off topic> What extension are you using, the one that coughs up the sky blue bar with the Y! and MSN SEO links?

Wit, I'm using SEObook's extension for FF.

I've seen it on several searches today. I would think this will actually help a few of my sites as I rank first for many of the long tail terms but show up on the second page for several larger volume key terms.

[rmccarley]

I'm not seeing that but I am seeing the news archive which is new to me.

[Michael Martinez]

It's an interface test. I saw one similar to that earlier today (using IE 7.0, for what it's worth).

[kichus]

I've never seen them under such a heading "searches related to:" but yeah, of course, they implemented a similar one for the [(Medical Related Terms)]...

google [headache] and you can see:
Refine results for headache:
Treatment Tests/diagnosis For patients From medical authorities Symptoms Causes/risk factors For health professionals Alternative medicine

[skitzzo]

I've blogged my thoughts about this new feature (rmc, I hope you were sitting down for that). What do you think?

What affects will/would this feature have?

[jrothra]

I've never seen it before. Probably a test run of something that will eventually become standard. It may be something for only certain keywords, too.

[skitzzo]

It appears to be only the more broad terms. They offer to narrow it for you. I really like this as my company's site ranks tops across several of the "searches related to:" for a much bigger term.

[earlpearl]

I just saw this over at SEland. They had reported on it back on December 19th last year.

Matt Cutts commented on it at SELand back then with this....

Reader Comments
I commented over on your post, Barry, but yup: this is new. As always, we experiment with ways to help users, including query refinement. Any new feature has a high bar to meet before we turn it on 100%; we don't want features that crowd the page but don't really help users.

Comment by Matt Cutts | December 19, 2006 1:40 PM

And so Matt. I'd like to see it a bit more and then see if I think it helps me