Google has launched new functionality developed in its labs, which is designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of searches.

Google Suggest, which will be available on the Google.com homepage, is an auto-suggest feature which could help users formulate queries by recommending the most popular options depending on what has already been typed.

According to a posting on GoogleBlog by product manager Jennifer Liu the feature started as a "20 per cent project" in 2004 and has subsequently been used in Google Labs, Toolbar, Firefox search box, Maps and web search for select countries, the iPhone, BlackBerry and YouTube.

Google Suggest could help users minimise spelling errors when typing in queries and saves time by reducing keystrokes, wrote Liu.