New Feature: Intelligent Autocomplete

Cludo’s new intelligent autocomplete is one of the most advanced and effective assistance tools available to site search users. This feature uses end-user behavior to make predictions about what a user is searching for, delivering recommended search suggestions faster, and creating a more efficient site search experience. This application of behavior based technology is the first of its kind in the site search market, and provides visitors with a much more relevant and efficient search experience than comparable products.

Why does it matter? Because it provides your website visitors with an easier path to the content they are searching for. At Cludo we go beyond simply site search- we enable the distribution of your content. By increasing the relevance of every search interaction and cutting down on misspellings, ineffective searches and other user errors, we increase the likelihood that your visitors will arrive at the content they are looking for before abandoning the search (and likely your website as well).

This has real implications for the revenue generated by your website, and lost visitors and opportunities resulting from an inaccurate or irrelevant search experience that turns customers away from your website.

A Better Content Discovery Experience

Intelligent autocomplete is a dynamic tool, that continues to evolve based on user behavior. The autocomplete suggestions continue to refine themselves- for instance, successful search queries that occurred more recently receive a higher precedence. This tool also gives you a great deal of control over the user experience. You can establish common pre-specified misspellings, suppress word phrases that are known to be ineffective (including profane language identified from over 25 languages), and include synonyms and abbreviations common in your industry or organization.

All of this white box search functionality will allow you to create a more satisfying content discovery experience for your end users.

This functionality also has great benefits to the accessibility of your website. Beyond helping individuals who may have trouble with spelling, it also makes the input of longer queries much more efficient- something that can have a great impact for users with a range of physical or learning disabilities. It is important to offer users with a differing range of abilities a way to rapidly arrive at the content they are looking for.

How does it work?

Cludo uses machine learning to predict what word or phrase a user is searching for, and progressively adjusts the suggestions as the user types in more characters. The powerful machine learning models that power our Intelligent Autocomplete are proprietary to Cludo, and draw from our database of user behavior to accurately predict search terms.

Cludo’s intelligent autocomplete is also unique in its query based approach. Other site search solutions base their autocomplete suggestions purely on content and tags- the autocomplete suggestions simply pull from the indexed content on the site, guessing at what the user is typing. Cludo’s autocomplete on the other hand is based on actual user behavior. This allows it to be more dynamic and accurate in the suggestions it serves, as it’s based on what has actually worked for other users rather than simply guessing based on a static database of content.

Intelligent autocomplete is also specific to an engine. This gives you more control over your end user experience, and enables you to deliver relevant results to specific groups of users, no matter the number of engines deployed on your website. This is especially useful for large organizations that have multiple sets of engines, vast content libraries, and varied types of users. It helps to cut down on the delivery of irrelevant search term suggestions, and by extension, the appearance of irrelevant search results.

The different levels of Autocomplete functionality

So we’ll say it right up front- the differences between varied types of autocomplete functionality can be confusing. If you’re confused about the difference between standard (legacy) autocomplete, rich autocomplete, and the new intelligent autocomplete, you can get a quick primer at our help center, which outlines the difference between these types of site search tools.

If you have questions about enabling or changing the variation of your autocomplete functionality, please contact Cludo’s support team.