Whenever Google sneezes there is usually a huge outcry in the SEO community bemoaning the death of SEO.
The latest change to Google search that set off the usual SEO IS DEAD hullaballoo is Google Instant. It works very simply – as you enter a search phrase into the Google search box, Google trys to predict which phrase you are searching for and offers up a few suggestions. As well as showing the suggestions, Google also includes the results for each suggestion underneath the search box. The page changes according to the phrase you highlight (using the arrow keys).
Take a look at this image. The phrase I am typing in is “search engine optimization”, but I have only entered “search eng”. Google doesn’t know what I am looking for so it provides me with a few options.
In the second image I have typed in the full phrase “search engine optimization”. Notice the different results? (Click on the images for the bigger versions).
Google Instant is only available in a few countries at this time, and only available in certain browsers.
“Google Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the following browsers: Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8. Please note, users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. We will continue to add new domains and languages over the next several months.”
If you want to switch it off you can do so by changing your preferences or looking for the “Instant is On” link.
But what about search engine optimization? Will Google Instant be the death of it? Steve Rubel thinks it will. Danny Sullivan thinks it won’t. I have to agree with Danny Sullivan, but I think Steve Rubel has provided us with a perfect example of linkbait.
Interesting, wonder if it will kill SEO.. Thanks for sharing
Anyways nice to connect with you. I’m Ben from EpicLaunch :)
Hi Ben,
Thanks for commenting and good to meet you.
I can’t see how Google Instant will kill SEO, but it will be interesting to see how things develop.
:) Pretty interesting and lets see.
Thanks for sharing the post :)
Thanks for dropping by and commenting.
I think not, it will only make SEOs more challenged in beating the system :) I’m already thinking of ways how to take advantage of that sudden change in the game. The only problem that I can really think of is that these Google Instant, may somehow affect search habits. It can really influence searchers’ queries, especially when they are seeing suggestions/predictions from google that may change their minds.
One thing that I think can help in taking advantage of this change is to study these predictions and see if they are related to your targeted keywords, if it’s related, better start shooting for it :)
Regards,
Jason
“It can really influence searchers’ queries, especially when they are seeing suggestions/predictions from google that may change their minds.” – That is an excellent point Jason, and I have been thinking along the same lines. It is so easy to get distracted on the internet and Google Instant seems like another way for that to happen. Say someone is looking for a digital camera bag and Google throws a new digital camera by Canon into the mix, who is to say the searcher will forget what they are looking for and go off and look at the new Canon camera? It could also work the opposite way, of course.
Stephen, I don’t think it will kill it. In fact, over the past few days I have seen some good results on my pages for more long tail keywords that I am targeting. I think instant search with suggestions will only help people to start using longer tail keywords to find what they are looking for. I completely disagree with the fact that it will hurt SEO, unless you are doing it without any research.