GoodLe: related searches

When searching for a keyword in Google News you'll see (if you scroll all the way down) a list of related news searches. This is a new feature that will suggest other search terms based on some automated algorithms, making sometimes connections between specific stories. Example, searching for guns will show the following related searches:

This related news searches feature also shows connections where you wouldn't think there would be any. For instance one of the suggested related searches for guns is OJ Simpson - because he was accused of robbery with a firearm - so Google News already made a connection between guns and the robbery. Plus, Las Vegas hotel is mentioned there too, because that's where the assumed robbery took place. Smart isn't it.

Doing another search for Obama, Google News shows these related searches:

The related searches seem somehow normal, however only 2 of the six related searches actually contain the keyword Obama. I know that people searching for Obama are interested in news about Hillary and McCain, but why do these related searches on the Google News page are so different from those displayed on the normal Google Search page (see image below)?

On the normal Google Search page the related searches are actually popular keywords but closely related to the original keyword you used - however on the Google News page the related searches are keywords that are somehow related with the original keyword, but popular in the Google News search.
Here's an example, when doing a Google Search for Obama you see Obama Muslim as a related search. When doing a Google News search for Obama you don't see Obama Muslim as a related news search, mainly because the other related news searches are more popular than this one. So on Google News related searches primes the popularity in the News section, while on Google Search primes the connection with your original keyword.

Whenever you do a search for a popular keyword Google will display up to 8 related searches at the end of the search results. For a while now Google is been testing the display of the Related searches at the top of the search results, but only if for the keyword you searched it has more than 8 suggestions (related searches). For instance, searching for the word backup you'll see at the top of the search results 4 Related searches.

Google displays those based on popularity and search habits. Scrolling down at the end of the search results you'll see all 8 Related searches that Google found.
Now, Google shows those at the top only if there are more than 8 related searches, but since this feature is yet not final there are still cases when the related searches are not shown at the top even if at the bottom there are 8 related searches shown - the case of searching for the keyword games.

When I say the feature is not yet ready I based the assumption on:
- the display of the 4 most popular related searches at the top of the search results is not final, because Google also tests if this would affect possitivelly user's search experience (see the first screenshot I took, you can see that the related searches are placed right under the ad, so the user might be confused if that's part of the ad or not)
- the related searches need some filtering, even if SafeSearch is off. An example is the fact that when you do a search for buy, you'll see some surprising related searches, such as buy guns and buy steroids

Whether this will remain as is or changes will be made, remains to be seen.