What is Google Instant?

What is Google Instant?

It seems Google is changing the way it works- yet again. Last week, Google.com changed the new way which it returns search results: Google Instant. Many people are now asking what is Google Instant and how will it effect my placement on Google?

Google Instant has not been released in Canada as yet, but a quick look on Google.com shows how it works, which is exactly why it’s called Google Instant. While typing in your search query, Google will now begin displaying matching search results as you’re typing, without having to click the ‘search’ button. This has generated some concern for SEO specialists, as this now changes the way in which search results are delivered.

For example, while you are typing ‘how do I rank my website on google?’, Google will now begin displaying results for ‘how do I’, ‘how do I rank’ etc.  while at the same time, offering suggestions in grey (much like how it did before). These more general search queries may not match your more specific key phrase, which is ‘how do I rank my website on google?’. Now I’m sure you’re asking yourself: “Ok, but who cares? it will probably suggest my more detailed key phrase anyways, right?” Well, not necessarily…

The way SEO works is you specify a main keyword or key phrase in your keyword meta tag (along with other meta data such as description and other robot commands), which helps guide the bot (or spider) on what to look out for when crawling your page. If you have done your SEO correctly, then your text on the page is balanced with about 7-10% keyword to text size ratio, which tells the spider that this page is indeed about the main keyword or key phrase.

This is where the potential problem arises: if your key phrase is ‘website designers in toronto’, Google Instant will now begin returning results for ‘website’, ‘website design’, ‘website designers’ without allowing the visitor to enter the complete search phrase before seeing the results. Still, you may think, “why is this a problem?” . This can be an issue because people are getting more and more lazy, and want instant gratification. Many will think “wow! I don’t even have to finish typing in my search and I’m already getting search results!”. How does this effect you? Simple: your website may not rank for the more general key phrase!

If you conduct some searches on Google or any search engine, you will see that the more specific (or detailed) your search query is, the less results the search engine will return. This works on a very simple logic: you are giving the search engine more specific instructions on what you are looking for, so it does not need to guess which websites have this information and return the results.

It is still quite early for people to begin panicking about their search engine rankings on Google, but one thing is clear: Google Instant is going to change the way in search engine optimization works. SEO specialists will now have to ensure their clients’ websites rank highly for even the most general spin offs of the main key phrase. Let’s see how this plays out… I’ll definitely write more about Google Instant as I myself learn more about it, and how it may effect your rankings, so check back regularly!