Anyone else have this happen when Googling lately?

Since I turned them off, I can’t really say for sure, but Google has had ‘sponsored results’ for a while, so it wouldn’t surprise me all that much.

That said, if you want it to go away, I’m not sure if this is the precise problem, but I think it should help if not fix it: search for something, then hit the gear icon on the top right and select “search settings” like so. Then change the “Google Instant predictions” setting to “Never show instant results”. I turned it off as soon as I figured that out, it’s bloody annoying.

Is it possible that your cursor was pointing at one of the “autocomplete” search terms? Perhaps you lightly brushed the touchpad by accident, causing it to select an unwanted result. This happens to me occasionally.

In the case of “forever”, half of the autocomplete search terms are related to Forever 21, so odds are good that if there were such an accident, you’d end up at the store’s site.

Google autocomplete shows me suggested searches but I can just ignore them and keep typing.

You can turn that off It’s in your settings.

Mariah, I think I know what glitch you’re experiencing and I don’t expect it’s an intentional marketing ploy. There’s 2 elements at play: Predictive search vs Historical auto-fill. The predictive stuff is based on what you’re typing and it shows a list of similar searches below that you “might” be about to type. But auto-fill puts in text you or someone else typed in the past beside your text. If you hit enter too soon or by accident, or if your hand swipes by your trackpad you might accidentally launch that search from your history. Also imagine, if you go there by accident it might still get saved in your history so then it thinks maybe you want to go there again, so it loads it up.

Does this sound like it?

Try going to Google Preferences and unclicking ‘always show instant results’.

Guys, this is something different from Google Instant. I like Instant just fine. The issue with what I’m describing in the OP is that my cursor gets kicked out of the search box.

I think maybe @glacial and @ninjacolin have nailed what’s happening. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll keep an eye on where my cursor is hovering next time it happens.

I’ve most certainly noticed quite a while back that Google’s suggested searches are usually about buying something. Kinda pisses me off. Or a Wiki entry. Never kicked me out of the search box though. But probably I need to upgrade my rig before I can access that wonderful feature. Lol.