The Completion Suggester is the default option for search-as-you-type suggestions. It was initially designed to provide a more fluent user experience.
The completion suggester features a totally new method for ranking search results.In general, you should see more relevant search results for your queries, with the effect being particularly pronounced for shorter queries.The new method also incorporates page views into the rankings, so that pages which are viewed more often are ranked slightly higher than pages which are viewed less frequently.
The completion suggester is tolerant to small typos.This includes the following types of typos:
| Default algorithm | Completion Suggester |
|---|---|
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The completion suggester is also tolerant to stop words.If the user forgot to type a leading article likeThe the suggestions will get displayed.Searching forlord rings will properly suggest all pages related to The Lord of the Rings.
Redirects with typos are sometimes added to popular pages and the default suggestion algorithm will simply display the redirect as is.The Completion Suggester will attempt to display the proper title if the redirect is close enough. Searching forAirton Senna will properly suggestAyrton Senna.This is useful to avoid displaying obviously wrong redirects likeUnietd States.
The system is using a combination of multiple factors to rank the suggestions:
If you are curious to know how the score is computed for a particular page please see thecirruscompsuggestbuilddoc action API property, for example see an explanation of how thew:Algorithm page is constructed and scored by the completion suggester:cirruscompsuggestbuilddoc on w:Algorithm (note thescore_explanation section)
The completion suggester feature has a preference tab inSpecial:Preferences to configure the search-as-you-type suggestions.
The legacy search-as-you-type suggestion algorithm.