How does Google know... (characters)

[rstevens62]

Has anyone ever noticed when they go to Google and start typing in a question, usually within the first few letters, the drop down menu of selections pops up, usually the question or topic you were searching for, is the first or second selection?

I noticed this years ago, I can understand some of this, because Google knows your past searches, so it has a good idea what you are asking to begin with, but sometimes, Im searching or asking something totally unrelated and its still usually the first or second thing on the pop up menu.

Its almost like Google knows what I am asking for before I start typing it in. Does anyone think they may be employing technology that none of us is aware of? Im not trying to be the guy wearing the tin foil hat, but cmon, its Google, of course they are going to have technology that is still in the testing phase, stuff that the general public is not aware of yet, or still thinks is impossible.

[Skunk Workz]

No secret mind reading technology here. It's based in large part on other peoples search history.

When you have 40,000 searches per second (Google's current average), you're going to see the same search phrases over and over again.

[gguerra]

If you login to google and have your history enabled it will remember your own previous searches. Other than that it will bring up common search phrases based on the characters you type. By common, I mean what other people are searching for. There's more to it than that but that is it in a nutshell.

[Tek_Freek]

Agreed. When a news topic comes up everyone searches on it. That is a good example. It is also triggered by sites that get upset about ad blocking. Leave the site and Google the subject. Remember that site and don't go back.