In a post on the Official Google Blog, the company says the changes “help guide users more effectively to the information they need.” Not convinced is ReadWriteWeb, which notes that by listing more related queries and longer descriptions, visitors will end up staying on Google’s pages longer—instead of moving on more quickly to the sites they actually want to visit. Same goes for The Noisy Channel, which complains that the list of search suggestions is still, for the most part, at the bottom of the page, a decision that the blog describes as “timid.”

Indeed, the Live Search update Microsoft is testing internally lists related searches prominently in the upper-left-hand column of every search-results page. Then again, as Live Search GM Mike Nichols said in an interview with paidContent.org, Microsoft can afford to take some chances because its market share is so weak.

Google says that the more sophisticated related-search suggestions is part of the deployment “of a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search.” Google acquired the technology in 2006 from the University of New South Wales in Sydney.