Instant Alphabet
Dave mentioned today that people have been going on asking how to rank for single letters! This is kind of stupid once you realise how it works – it actually shows the results for the query it is suggesting, so if you type “a” on google.com – it doesn’t show you the results for “a” it shows you the results for “Amazon”.
Some brands are undoubtedly going to benefit from this, so without further ado, here is the “Instant Alphabet” – the brands that are going to benefit most from this new change.
| Letter | Google.co.uk | Google.com |
| A is for… | Argos | Amazon |
| B is for… | BBC | Best Buy |
| C is for… | Currys | Craigslist |
| D is for… | Debenhams | Dictionary |
| E is for… | Ebay | Ebay |
| F is for… | ||
| G is for… | Google Maps | Gmail |
| H is for… | Hotmail | Hotmail |
| I is for… | ITV | Ikea |
| J is for… | John Lewis | Jet Blue |
| K is for… | KLM | Kohls |
| L is for… | Lotto | Lowes |
| M is for… | MSN | Mapquest |
| N is for… | Next | Netflix |
| O is for… | O2 | Orbitz |
| P is for… | PayPal | Pandora |
| Q is for… | QVC | Quotes |
| R is for… | Rightmove | Rei |
| S is for… | Sky | Sears |
| T is for… | Tesco | Target |
| U is for… | Utube | Usps |
| V is for… | Virgin | Verizon |
| W is for… | Weather | Weather |
| X is for… | Xbox | Xbox |
| Y is for… | YouTube | Yahoo |
| Z is for… | Zara | Zillow |
So what do you guys think, are these the biggest brands on Google for each letter? I’m guessing it is the brand with the most amount of searches for that letter gets shown.
Jake 978 days ago
http://www.jakelangwith.comSurprised Youtube didn’t come up for both
Depesh 978 days ago
It’s interesting that Yahoo is the first to come up for Y, which is echoed by this post I read yesterday about the Search Engines taking competition a little more seriously and perhaps eradicating or lowering the positions of rival engines: http://explicitly.me/bing-uk-search
Brian Broadbent 978 days ago
The alphabet is even more localized than you suggest.
Google thought I was based in Waco this morning based on my IP (but I’m really in Dallas).
For B, I got Best Buy but I also got a Google Places listing for Best Buy in Waco.
For K, I got the local TV affiliate website in Waco (KWTX), not Kohl’s…..
For O, I got Office Depot (not Orbitz) and it was stacked.
David Whitehouse 978 days ago
@Brian – thats very interesting, I wonder if it is also gets personalised…
Evgeni Yordanov 978 days ago
http://seoptimizacia.com/about.htmlYeah, I was quite surprised not to see YouTube showing up on both places for “Y”. Quite interesting according to me.
David Whitehouse 978 days ago
If I was Google, I would exclude Bing and Yahoo from the index, but I guess they do no evil…
chuck 978 days ago
http://www.cranialborborygmus.comDavid,
I think “instant” may need a little “refinement.” 
Google instant has all kinds of ramifications. I just read a post about someone searching for Jessie James and they were a little surprised by the “instant result” for Jessie. I just tried it myself (in the US) and sure enough, the images are “surprising”, especially if your third grader was doing a report on Jessie James.
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Arjun Sandhu 978 days ago
http://www.modulussystems.comHaving said that, I pimped my Analytics using http://blog.semetrical.com/how-to-track-google-instant-in-google-analytics/ to see how Google Instant is affecting one of my 10k users a day sites. Next day I find the thingy isn’t really working. I guess it’ll be sometime before Instant allows us to find exactly how good or bad the first alphabet appearance will prove for these brands.
Chris St C 978 days ago
http://www.newsvend.comHi David, tell me you didn’t stop by http://www.newsvend.com/the-google-instant-alphabet-168177.html before writing this post
I’m sure you’d have credited me a link if you had, wouldn’t you?!
Maurice 977 days ago
surprised that Virgin got V and not Voda
likewise Sainsburys didnt get S obvisly google is “frit” of Murdoc as well as MP’s and the Met Police
David Whitehouse 977 days ago
@Chris – Funnily enough, this was purely my own idea, I hadn’t seen it around on any other site – the idea took form after Dave said people had been going on about optimising for single keywords.
I guess great minds think a like.
Raj 976 days ago
http://www.linkedin.com/in/clayduck@Brian @David – Personalised – Instant also looks at userssearch history (if switched on) in addition to location.
Jonathan 970 days ago
http://blog.seokoeln.deDavid, thank you for this article. There are still people – more than two weeks since Instant went live – who claim that everybody has to start optimizing for single letters. Unbelievable
Cheers,
J
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