When Google sneezes, the rest of the internet catches a cold. Every year brings announcements of new updates and additions to the world’s favorite search engine that cause panic amongst anyone with a vested interest in search engine optimisation. This panic is usually an overreaction to relatively minor changes which usually only negatively affect web pages that have used underhand techniques to rise through the search rankings. Google Instant seems a different proposition altogether as it fundamentally alters the way in which users search the internet.
Users have searched the same way since the dawn of the internet age. They type their search term into the search engine and hit enter. The results appear moments later. What Google Instant does is completely do away with the need to hit enter, or even to type out the full search term.
Let’s say you’re searching for ‘Google Instant’. First you enter ‘G’. Search results appear instantly as you continue typing. Google Maps is at the top of the results page, closely followed by Google Earth and Google Mobile. This remains unaltered as you type out the rest of the company’s name. As users become more used to the way in which live search works, it seems likely that they’ll stop typing after ‘G’, as its clear that all the top results match the full search term anyway. As you begin typing the next word, entering the ‘I’ brings links to Google Images to the top of the search results. The ‘n’ then brings Google Instant to the top of the search results. At this point, the user will clearly stop typing and click the top link.
The above example explains the basic functionality of the new feature, but it actually gets a bit more complex than that. One thing sure to give SEO gurus headaches is the fact that Google bases the results that Google Instant displays on a user’s web history. This means that the search results will be unique to each user. It’s worth pointing out here that Google Instant only appears for those who are signed into a Google account. This means that any alterations webmasters may consider making to their SEO strategy to accommodate the new feature will be of no relevance to many of the trillion-odd searches made on Google each day.
Any website with a focused SEO centered on the search term ‘Chinese takeaway’ will still be displayed at the same point in the search process. The personalised search aspect of Google Instant, whereby these results are tweaked according to my location and web history, has actually been a part of Google since long before the implementation of Google Instant. Anyone working in SEO should have by now adapted to and accounted for this.
One possibility of Google Instant that has received some discussion in the blogosphere is the possibility of exploiting the new function by optimising for false keywords. In the example above, a webpage that focused heavily on optimising itself for the search term ‘Chinese t’, or even ‘Chinese tak’, could potentially bypass results for Chinese takeaway and appear earlier in the search process. Google are always one step ahead of the SEO game, however, and Google Instant has already accounted for this. If you press enter during the search, having only entered ‘Chinese t’, you’re met with an entirely different set of results than those targeted at the search term ‘Chinese takeaway’.
The reason for this is that Google Instant actually works by guessing what a user is searching for and suggesting a complete term, rather than simply displaying results directly related to what a user has entered. The effect that Google Instant will have on search engine optimisation strategies is therefore far less apocalyptic than many panic-struck SEO ‘experts’ may currently fear. Websites will still be targeting getting themselves high on the ranking for the same search terms as they always have. The only real difference is that users will stumble across their search engine optimised web page more quickly.
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