We have a growing number of customers implementing Rich Auto Complete. We have some preliminary data from them and the results are looking very interesting. First of all some background…

What  is Auto Complete

The precursor to Rich Auto Complete is Auto Complete. This shows search terms below the search box that match the characters you have typed into a search box. This is a common feature on web search engines, such as Google and is now a standard site search feature on many sites. We have been providing auto complete to our clients for a couple of years now. It’s a great feature because it helps searchers with their query formation, it reduces errors, and adds a little serendipity to the search experience.

What is Rich Auto Complete?

Rich Auto Complete is a search feature that shows search results as you type into the search box. This is normally implemented using AJAX, which captures the keystrokes as they are made and sends the partial search term to a server which provides search results which match the partial search term. The example below from Best Buy Eyeglasses is showing a mixture search suggestions and products.

Some sites, such as Apple have had Rich Auto Complete for a long time. We have begun offering it to our customers over the past few months and are getting a lot of interest in this feature. The initial data from the analytics are looking very promising.

So what difference does it make?

First of all some qualifiers – this data is very preliminary, taken from only a few sites (not from the sites mentioned above).

• A lot of people use this: 33% of people who search used the Rich Auto Complete (clicking on either a search suggestion, or a product)
• Those that use this feature convert at twice the rate of those that don’t
• The average order value for people who use this feature is 17% higher than for those who search and don’t use this feature.

We haven’t done an A/B test yet, so it could be that the people who use this feature would convert at a higher rate, with a higher average order value anyway. However the indications are that this is going to be a popular feature that significantly improves the performance of your website.

Why does it work?

Rich Auto Complete shortens the path from searching to buying. By allowing people to click on products directly from the search box it skips the need to see the search page.

The future

I’m sure that you will see Rich Auto Complete appearing on many sites over the coming months and years. It will start to become a standard feature. Linda Bustos from the Get Elastic blog predicted this last year. I’m only a year behind – but I support that prediction.

PS: Interestingly this hasn’t become a standard feature on the web search engines. Maybe this is because it significantly increases the bandwidth and query volumes they would need to support on their servers. I do remember seeing reports that Google was testing something like this a while back. This week there was another report about a Google test where they would update the whole search results page as you typed.

Earlier this week we announced our new Learning Search for Publishers, a new variation of our hosted site search product aimed at the online publishing/digital media industry. The value proposition of a good site search in online publishing is similar to that of e-commerce: it improves the visitor experience, increases page views and can result in more sales. For publishers, our offering takes it a step further by providing useful data about search terms and resulting items clicked on to advertisers, giving them an opportunity to deliver more targeted ads to visitors.

Take our customer Dilbert.com (which we also announced yesterday). Dilbert.com recently added our site search to the popular cartoon strip site, making it much easier for fans to search the 20-year archive by character name or theme/topic (warning: if you engage in this activity you may find yourself wasting a LOT of time).

Dilbert’s previous site search didn’t allow for this, so people either had to know the exact date of the cartoon strip or search by character and hope they found it. Since the Dilbert.com site is supported by display ads, as well as licensing revenues (people license the comic strip for use in books, t-shirts, company newsletters and other things), a good site search is important to its business. Since deploying our site search, page views are already up 3 percent (a substantial number given that the site sees more than 1 million visitors a month), and the company says they also expect licensing sales to also increase.

Another benefit of an effective site search on a digital media site is the ability to drive visitors to the variety of content available – for example, videos and blog posts, and revenue-generating content, such as subscriber-only articles (some of our customers have also seen revenue increases from more people clicking on articles behind the pay-wall). Without the ability to refine and help narrow down searches to find the desired content, visitors are not likely to remain on the site or make return visits. And higher page views mean that online publishers can set higher advertising rates.

We’re excited about entering this new market and see lots of opportunity among media sites in need of better, more impactful site search. We’ll be talking more about the challenges publishers face and how site search can address them in the coming months, as well as some of the unique benefits our customers have gotten from using Learning Search.