There has been a lot of discussion and debate amongst SEO professionals lately regarding the impact of Google’s latest search engine update, Google Instant. For those of you that haven’t heard about it, Google Instant is a way to make searches faster and more targeted by updating the search results as you type, without you having to press enter or click on the search button. It has yet launched in Australia but is being rolled out in different areas of the world as we speak.
Matt Cutts from Google says that Google Instant is an enhancement to Google’s user interface (UI) and is designed to help users achieve better and quicker search results. Google says that by predicting your search and showing instant results before you finish typing you can save 2-5 seconds per search and 350 million hours of search time, over a year. This figure is based on an instant search saving of two to five seconds of search time, in areas where Google Instant has already been rolled out.
The purpose of Google Instant is to speed up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). It does this by predicting what your search will be and automatically completing the search field while you are typing. For example, typing in ‘pet supplies’ might start with pets until you complete typing your search. The results page for pets will flash up until you continue typing ‘pet supplies’’. As you continue to type, both the predicted queries and the search results will change.
Please watch this brief video from Google to find out more about Google Instant.
Some SEO bloggers are predicting that long-tail search is now dead. I tend to disagree and believe that because search results are updating as you type, being in the top 3 positions is now EVEN MORE important than ever before. People are now much less likely to scroll down the page to find what they want. If they don’t find what they want in the first few listings, instead of scrolling down, I have the opinion that a large proportion of people will just refine their search to get more relevant results.
This also means that Google Places Pages or local listings will become even more important to local searches as the Google Place Listings will show up even before any organic results are delivered. The Google Place Listings typically only show up when the user types in a service providing business followed by the city or area for their search.
Whatever the impact of Google Instant may be, it is ALWAYS important to be on top any changes and ahead of your competitors. Working with an innovative, results driven SEO company with proven results is one of the best ways to be ahead of the pack.