Google Instant and SEO
Posted: Thursday 09 September, 2010
Pete Goold
With the web aflame with discussion about Google Instant, we have put a little thought into what it might mean from a search perspective. Firstly though, Matt Cutts of Google has gone to some lengths to reassure the search community that this is most certaintly not the end of SEO.
Also, the team at Savoo has kindly fired across this piece about the Affiliate commuinity's initial reaction to Google Instant yesterday.
I do think that this new technology will cause some significant changes - most prominently in terms of traffic being diverted from it's otherwise likely destination and also in terms of how search marketers approach the science of keyword research a little differently as a result.
Specifically, I suspect that in the medium to long term, traffic behaviour is likely to be affected as a result of how the results are given for ‘partial-keywords' as the user types.
For example, a term like ‘Online PR' will now show the results for ‘online...' when the user gets to that point in the search. This could affect all keywords but, in particular, this will probably divert traffic from some more long tail keywords, particularly with three or more words in the search phrase.
Moreover, the order of keywords will perhaps become more relevant - ie 'Online PR' will show results for online first before the second word is typed whereas ‘PR online' will show results for PR before making it more specific with the addition of the second word. Again, this will doubtless have an impact of traffic behaviour as results are served differently in each instance.
I suspect also that as this works a little like predictive text on a phone handset, basically allowing Google to finish the user's word or phrase (or suggest a word or phrase), this is likely to steer users towards/away from specific terms and again directly influence the flow of traffic.
Ultimately, some terms will undoubtedly benefit whilst others will suffer, so what this will mean is that marketers are going to have to think a little harder regarding keyphrase construction to ensure this new parameter is taken into account and the risk of 'traffic leakage' before the full search term results are presented is minimised.
