The launch of Google Instant and its impact on SEO

Quba's Richard Lawrence road-tests the search engine's latest offering, Google Instant, and explains how it might change the way in which we optimise web pages.

At first glance Google Instant might appear to be just an expansion of its auto-suggestion feature, delivering actual results in real time (in other words, as you type into the search window). By the time you've finished typing your search query you may have seen a number of sets of results. It's not a service you have to sign up for. It currently works by default once you're signed into your Google account – check it out.

Google Instant implications on search engine optimisation?

My first and instant (no pun intended) reaction was that it will have little or no impact on SEO. Rather than try to deliver the most popular and relevant results by using different criteria, the aim here seems to be simply to speed up delivery. The end result – the site the user visits – will probably therefore remain the same... in most instances.

However, having explored a bit further, I think that its ultimate impact could depend on whether Google Instant is an attempt to integrate the current algorithm with the way it formulates auto-suggestions. The auto-suggest tool seems to be mainly based on the number of searches a word or phrase receives (with the possible addition of where the user ends up). Google Instant could take this into account. For example, if you go to the old version of Google (if it's still in existence by the time this is published) and type 'F' then 'Facebook' is nowhere to be seen on the first page of the results. However, if you type 'F' into Google Instant then a results page appears and Facebook (probably one of the most searched for words beginning with 'F') is right at the top as the first suggestion. That points to its impact being far greater than first thought.

I've been reading a lot about Google failing to combat spam recently, or at least seemingly ignoring it, as well as how big brands are a bigger consideration in the search results at present. Maybe they have hidden a spam solution in Google Instant, by factoring in to the current algorithm the volume of searches associated with a brand name?

My conclusion is that this seemingly superficial new feature may have a lot more to it. Watch this space.

This article was adapted from an entry by Richard Lawrence on the Quba blog and is reproduced with his kind permission.

 

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