Unlike Google's Suggest beta, Livesearch will auto complete words/phrases while you type into the search box and also selects the first search and pulls up the first related search while you are typing. This can save time. If you keep typing and add a word to the phrase, correct spelling, etc., this will also change the suggested alternate searches and pull up new search results automatically. Also unlike Google Suggest, the related/similar search terms remain visible near the search box so that you can instantly try a related search without having to re-generate a related list of search terms/phrase by re-typing your original query. On a moderately fast internet connection, these features can be a boon as it saves you a few clicks and some of the trial and error involved in searching.

Alltheweb's LiveSearch should not be confused with MSN's beta search at Live.com (yes, the name is similar and they do both use the popular "AJAX" java and XML programming language). While Live.com does add a myriad of configuration options for the advanced searcher, Alltheweb's Livesearch remains very well grounded in it's simplicity. If you wish to set preferences like how many results to show per results page, turn the adult content filter on/off, change the types of file types you wish to search against (i.e. PDFs, html, txt files, etc.), refine your search to show results only from a specific domain, and a bit more, this can be done with out leaving the main search page. Other search services like the main Yahoo.com site, MSN, Google, etc. require that you switch to an advanced search page, or 'sign in' to an account, or bump you through a preference page or two before returning you to an actual search page. Just being able to make a few changes to your search preferences on the go and search is a great improvement and a nice change. The average person can search and make changes with out having to learn the quirks of the engine or go to special pages which in my book, speaks volumes.

As this is a beta search service and obviously open to improvements, there is one improvement that would be very welcome. When searching through some of the related search types, like their news, picture, video and audio search options, this takes you to a new page which uses their old or normal search interface. Hopefully when this service is non-beta, one could choose to search from those other options but within the same search interface as one sees within the main Livesearch beta. Beyond this one improvement, it is a very fluid search. If you are interested in other Yahoo based search experiments, check out: Yahoo's Instant Search Beta, Yahoo's Minset as well as other developments from Yahoo Next, Google Labs, and MSN Live Ideas.

                 ← What is this?