Search as a "Session" thing..

This one's small.. not a groundbreaking, game-changing idea as such. But for once, its my own idea and not something that I came across while randomely browsing..

So, all of us use search as our gateway to the web. We fire, on an average, 10-15 queries per day.. if you think of your own search behavior, you will find an interesting pattern. Generally, your searches per day are broken into 3-4 "search sessions". That is, when you visit a search engine, you fire a query on the top of your mind, and then you realize you also wanted to search for something else, so you fir those queries too (like grocery shopping, you go to a grocery shop to buy a bread, and you realize that you also need milk...). Another scenario is, you fire multiple queries to find relevant information on the same topic by toying with the search string..

The second scenario is very interesting to me. Let me give you an example from today. I was researching on "best practices for intranet design". My behavior was as follows:

1. I type in the query string "Best practices for intranet design". I get some results, I click on a few and I find some information useful. But I am not done yet.. I want more relevant results

2. I type in the query string "Intranet portals best practices". Some of the results I get are different from the previous set of results. I click on a few and find some more useful info. But I am not satisfied yet..

3. Now I try "Study of intranet portals".. Get some results, click through, and read some article..

4. While reading, I suddenly feel the urge to go back and see some result that I found in step 1. So I type in again "Best practices for intranet design" and look for that link which I had read..

Doesnt this happen with you..??? It happens with me everyday..whenever I am researching on whatever..

Thinking of it, the solution is simple. Treat search as a session activity, and somehow provide easy access to previously tried query strings in that particular session. Something as simple as a dropdown on search box can help. Every time I load the search engine page, a new session starts. As long as I am on the search page, the session is on, and every search query that I try, gets added to the search box dropdown. The problem solved..?? I dont have to recollect and type the same querystring again.. A small benefit, but definitely a benefit..!!!

We dont want users to login to search engines, that drives more than half users away.. but we can still achieve this session like behavior by using good old "session variables". Obviously, there are perf and memory issues on the search server..what if one user tries million search strings back to back....?? Its an implementation question, and I am sure someone better at coding than me, will have an answer..

So, if we think of search as a session activity, what are the other things that we can provide the user with? How about a "session search box" where you can drag and drop every link you found interesting while you were trying different search strings..?? Imagine on the right top corner of the search results page, a notepad like something. You can sinmply drag and drop links that you like in there in a session, and at the end os session, just save that thing as a notepad file or something.. That will be a great utility for all researchers...

Any other ideas..???