Google Instant? Hmmm.
So of course everyone’s all over Google Instant this morning. In case you’re not, it’s just an Ajaxified version of Google that brings in the search results as you type.
Because I’m too lazy to make a video, here’s a few screenshots. Notice that as I type, I not only get the usual Google Suggest drop-down, but a light grey predictive text kind of feature in the search box. More dramatically (if you set the bar for ‘drama’ a notch or two below Emmerdale) the actual SERPs themselves change as you type.
Is it any good? Skip over the screenshots for initial impressions!



Is it any good?
Google state up front that:
We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster.
There’s no doubt that as a technological achievement, Google Instant is pretty incredible. Given the vast size of its index, the astonishing complexity of its algorithm and the sheer volume of traffic the search giantTM handles, to be able to pull the results out in real time is pretty phenomenal. If nothing else, the engineers should be (and probably are) high-fiving each other on rolling this out.
The achievement is all the more impressive when you remember that 25% of all search queries seen by Google have never been seen before, so the opportunity to pre-fetch or cache results ahead of time is necessarily limited.
»The more they can keep you searching and using Google as your portal to the web, the more ads they can serve you”
Technological achievement aside, my own initial impressions are mixed. Google say that this will help save time on typing queries (2-5 seconds is their claim) as the results will save people formulating longer queries.
On a sheer practical level, I know many people who don’t even look up from their keyboard when typing and thus have never even seen Google Suggest as it is, so clearly this won’t have any effect on those with sub-par typing skills. Then there’s the category of people who, like my dad, pause between every letter to look at the screen over the tops of their glasses to check what they’ve typed so far. They’re suddenly going to find that Google has half-filled in the text box for them, added a drop down and filled the screen with results before they’ve even finished.
I just know that sitting next to my dad while he tries to find this article on the Daily Mail about house prices will stretch to infinity as he grapples with what he’s seeing and how Google is behaving.
Now, admittedly these are classes of people who are probably way behind the tech curve and don’t interact that much with the web anyway so the effect on them will be pretty minimal – other than to add another area of confusion.
As what might immodestly be termed as power user of Google (what with it being my job and all) I’ve found it a little disconcerting but for other reasons. One of the big problems faced by heavy internet users is keeping on track and on focus. There’s a whole world of random gubbins out there and I’ve just quit Twitter because I found the distraction of life in the real time stream was getting too much.
We all know that Google SERPs themselves are distracting, because every query throws up things we weren’t expecting to see, or intriguing looking links that just beg to be clicked. At a stroke, the peril of these distractions has risen enormously. Before I’ve even typed ‘Paul Car’ I’ve seen results for Paul Gray, Paul Casey and Paul Carrack, and by the time I’ve got to ‘Paul Carp’ I’m seeing ‘Paul Carpenter Associates/actor/golf and (wtf?) “Paul Carpenter minnie the moocher”.
That’s a metric tonne of potential timewasting right there, and with the best will in the world people are likely to perform more – not fewer – searches as a result. And here is the rub from a Google perspective: the more they can keep you searching and using Google as your portal to the web, the more ads they can serve you. And as AdWords get served more frequently, so the cost of competing in the ad space goes up.
And on a purely personal level, I found it very visually disconcerting. I’m sure that familiarity will overcome that fairly quickly though.
…and SEO?
From an SEO perspective, we know that the algorithm here is no different. Anyone using Google Instant will see the same results as for the regular, default Google but the effect will be more interesting for the effect on user behaviour as I hinted above. As Google is stepping more into the prediction game, it’s hard to know what the effect will be on the long tail.
“Paul Carpenter” is one search term – but the very few people who search for “Paul Carpenter is a relentless sex machine” are going to be presented with a wealth of suggested choices before they even get to the ‘sex machine’ bit. In effect, Google will be guiding their search pattern towards things that it can suggest. Google are started to assert their influence into what people should be looking for at a subconscious level.
It’s hard not to conclude that a keyword strategy going forward that doesn’t pay enormous attention to the things that Google is ‘suggesting’ – and now actually showing as you type – is a foolish keyword strategy. Of course people are going to take the option to choose things that Google is suggesting.
We’ve spoken a fair bit recently about how accurate AdWords data is in terms of keyword research, but if Google Instant does become the new default (and Google say it will) then savvy SEOs will probably have to pay a lot more to what Google is putting in front of people. In one sense, it won’t change the general principle – target the head term and build up content to bring in the long tail on the back of that. But now you’ll have a clear 3, 4, 5, 6 opportunities to appear in the SERPs before the search is even complete.
Food for thought, as ever…
18 Comments
Gary Garside
Another issue is the fact it’s going to throw out Paid Search impressions. Take for example an extremely long tail keyword that some companies maybe serving ads on.
Whilst the user is typing their way to this keyword, paid ads for the short tail versions (which might be completely irrelevant as you’ve stated above with the SERPS) will be served. I presume this will count as an impression when the user had no intent at all in clicking on an ad related to the currently entered short tail keyword.
Barry Adams - http://www.visualscript.co.uk
I’m actually more worried about you using private browsing mode in Chrome. You got something to hide, eh? Looking at 4chan again when the boss isn’t looking eh? 😉
Mark Eddison - http://www.trussloft.co.uk
As a lay person, does this make the argument for SEO stronger? In effect if you rely on PPC to make up for a poor listing position then as users become used to seeing the guided keyword search and instant results, will they naturally start to move towards these ‘guides’ and instant results?
In effect the only way to be in and influence the real time results is to be in them and manipulating them to your benefit ?
Hemanical - http://twitter.com/mmhemani
Nice Post… I am still concern about the relationship between long tail keywords and Google Instant ?
Will Google Instant Search Affect My Page Rank, Or My Position In Google? | Paul Kortman - pingback
[…] as friends have posted already, stay calm, and stay on the SEO course. We’ll know in a couple of weeks how this affects user […]
FranktheTank - http://www.seomoz.org/users/view/47497
Good article, will be interesting to see the results in the long run. Especially with the strong focus on brands right now, I find what they give me after three letters extremely monotonous. I know, results didn’t change, it still feels strange to see 7 out of 10 results for the same domain as I type. Seems like work in progress to me (google’s philosophy I guess).
@Gary: In the presentation last night they said, they would only count as an impression if the ad was shown more than three seconds (in the questions part at the end)
Gary Garside
@Frank: Thanks for clearing that up. Missed the presentation. It could still be an issue however, what with non-internet-savvy users pausing for 3 seconds as the page starts updating their very eyes anyway.
Only time will tell I guess. As Paul’s snippet above said, I guess we have to wait for some data before jump to conclusions.
Tom
What about the effect of pushing results even further below the fold…. Positions of 2,3,4,5 etc stand little chance of being seen depending on how many ads it shows at the top….
Ian Bowland - http://www.webviz.co.uk
Very interesting. I’m specifically interested in the impressions views as detailed in clients AdWords Accounts and how this will impact on the relative CTR of those ads specifically in the top AdWords T positions. I suspect that the top Google AdWords T positions and the top search positions for more generic searches will become progressively more important.
However, will obviously completely depend on how real searchers react to the new SERPS and whether they click through using the suggestions before their full intended long tail search is completed.
I’ll be keeping a close look at this.
Irrespective it does however give us many many potential further distractions as we target in on our first intended search. As if we needed more distractions………….
Google Instant Evokes Moans and Groans from Wary Advertisers « Abba's Way - pingback
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Wards
Hey – the way I see it – it adds 50% to the speed at which a link builder can work!
My thoughts on Google Instant | Julie Cheung - pingback
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Artur Jach - http://blog.pod1.com
With the launch of Google Instant, it becomes apparent that Google suggestions will become one of the most important keyword research tools. To celebrate the launch of Google Instant I’d like to present a selection of Google Suggestions fails which proves that the dark Magic of SEO may become just a little bit funnier soon.
http://blog.pod1.com/other/google-suggestion-fails/
clara vargas
When I first visited this paper about the Facebook audience claim that’s off by 17,000 times my first thought was that David Naylor’s regulars should review this: http://hubpages.com/hub/Lies-Damned-Lies-Statistics-ComScores-Facebook-Audience-Claims-Are-Wrong-By-A-Factor-Of-17-000 According to ComScore, the average Facebook user is online half a second per day! Yeah, sure!
erocket - http://www.erocket.co.uk
I can see a very clear impact arising from Instant’s arrival, assuming people opt to click on the suggested results rather than continuing to extend and refine their search term. The following is hardly scientific, but interesting food for thought. Lets imagine I’m looking to buy a new tennis racket. I’m in the UK, and logged into Google.co.uk with personalisation turned off. I get the following suggestions when I type in the term tennis racket (these are actual results from a search this morning). I’ve listed the results I get in the order they occur, and with the reported Global / Local Exact search volumes reported by the AdWords Keyword Tool (Beta) alongside:
tennis rackets – 9900 / 4400
tennis racket string – 210 / 16
tennis racket sizes – 260 / 210
tennis racket reviews – 1000 / 260
tennis racket – 8100 / 1900
David, you’ve made the point previously that the volumes reported for keyword popularity are suspect at best, a view I share, but nonetheless I have used these reports to prioritise terms to pursue, by indicating their suggested popularity relevant to other terms in the same niche.
The results for tennis rackets suggest that keyword phrases are not being displayed based on their historical popularity. Even allowing for inaccuracies in the reported keyword volumes, that’s a hell of a difference reported for the second and third listings.
So, in this example, if I were running a tennis supplies ecommerce store this could be a game changer. If these results are commonly displayed when typing in ‘tennis racket’, it implies I would need to rethink the terms I am targeting most heavily.
On first look this suggests I would be wise to start identifying and targeting keyword phrases which, whilst reporting minimal popularity (and therefore perhaps not previously on my radar), are now appearing in the ‘top 5′ Instant suggestions.
I’ve already started work on this for the search terms related to the site I support (not tennis related), and it is throwing up similar outcomes to the example above. Fascinating stuff. This will keep us on our toes.
Maria Cimagala - http://www.sbtjapan.com
I saw this last week and I think this will make life easier for researchers/users.
But in an SEO perspective I just don’t know what will be the impact specially when
you have a long tail keywords.
Roger Bert
Still can’t get a hang of this. I have found it useful number of times when the site I was looking for appears automatically without me clicking search.
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