Google Instant Search and Search Engine Optimization
October 2, 2010Steve Rubel recently posted an article saying that Google Instant Search will make SEO irrelevant. I think that he is wrong for two enormous and blatantly glaring reasons.
The first reason is that there is the assumption that people use the Google homepage to search. There certainly are people who do that, and personally, now that the instant search is up and running, I do enjoy heading over there to do a search that way occasionally. However, as I have for a long time, I simply search from the address bar when using Chrome, or the search bar in other browsers.
In this case, search results are identical to what they have always been with no change in the slightest. I don’t know statistics, but personally, easily 80% of my searching will remain exactly the same. So, 80% of my search is going to remain exactly as it had always been.
And for the second reason, what about the other 20% (being generous) of my searching? Will that be totally different?
Not in the slightest.
Yes, search results will come up sooner and I might click on something faster. However, people still are searching the way they have been. If I get results for “car” when I’m part-way through typing “carriage,” I’m not going to stop and decide I don’t want to search for “carriage” anymore.
What searches will change? Long phrases where people know what they’re looking for and they see the result before they’re done typing. Like song lyrics. Or the title of a book. People who are doing that aren’t perusing the Internet. They’re focused on one thing and whether or not they typed the whole title or song lyric or only got part-way through, they’re going to end up at the exact same place.
