New feature uses Google's Search History to offer suggested Web sites based on users' most frequently visited sites Google unveiled new features Wednesday that allow search users to receive Web site recommendations without having to type in a query.The new features are designed for when users don’t have a query in mind or don’t feel like typing in a query, wrote Sep Kamvar, Google’s engineering lead for personalization, in a blog post.The features are designed for Google’s Search History users; Search History allows users to track and organize the pages they have visited and the frequency of visits. The first new feature is a recommendations button on the Google toolbar that looks like a pair of dice. Users can click on the dice, and Google will route them to a site that might be of interest based on past searches. Users can add the button to their toolbar and be offered up to 50 new sites per day, Kamvar said. In addition, Google has added a recommendations tab that a user can add to a personalized Google home page; Google will provide page recommendations that are updated daily.“Don’t expect very much at the beginning, but the more you build up your search history, and the more you use these features, the better they’ll become,” he wrote. “Over time, we will give you more and better recommendations.”The new features are markedly similar to StumbleUpon, which allows Web users to suggest sites of interest to other like-minded Web surfers and also themselves find new sites from the recommendations. StumbleUpon this week was rated No. 2 by Hitwise in a list of Web 2.0 companies most likely to become as successful as YouTube and Flickr based upon early adopters using the site now. Hitwise collects Internet traffic data directly from ISPs to measure the visitors to more than 800,000 Web sites. DatabasesSoftware Development