What is the "Searches Related to: keyword" list?

[dailypress]

When I googled a term a "Searches related to: keyword" list appeared at the bottom of the front page that contained basically domain brands although not all were related to the keyword. When you clicked on it, the SERP showed searches for that keyword.

How is this list determined by Google?

I have noticed that popular websites showed up, however, they really weren’t all related to my keyword search!

[tedster]

This feature is a bit over two years old - it falls in the territory that Google calls "query refinement" and at least some of the data used comes from queries that the same user enters in rapid succession. For some history, see Matt Cutts confirmation of query refinements [searchengineland.com] being introduced,, back December 2006.

As you've noticed, the "searches related to" are not always literal expansions of the original query term. We don't usually post search terms here, but for the sake of clarity in this discussion, I think we need an example. So do a Google Search for [Michael Jordan].

When I just did it, only five of the "searches related to" include his name - and the other three links suggest searches on [Kobe Bryant], [Magic Johnson], and [Lebron James]. Would someone who searches on [Michael Jordan] really be looking for these names in that moment? Well, maybe they got the name confused, I guess. But more likely this feature is something like Amazon's suggested other products: "People who looked for [keyword] also looked for [keywordB] and [keywordC].

So it's not exactly "disambiguation" but a concept slightly larger, but still including that idea.

[dailypress]

Got it. Thank you Tedster.