Google Instant, another ‘useful’ search function has been launched to users in the US. As usual us UK marketing people see a multitude of tweets from our US friends and wondering what the heck the issue is.
In summary, as you type your search term you are suggested phrases (similar to what we already see) but in addition, the search results change as you continue to type your search.
Personally, I find it a little irritating and can image many ‘non techie’ users finding it annoying too and desperately hunting the ‘turn off’ button. For a more detailed description check out Search Engine Land’s complete users guide to Google Instant Search.
As I said above, most of the hoo-ha is coming from our friends across the water and in the UK we are scratching our heads thinking, why all the fuss? I don’t see any change! That’s because at the moment, in the UK (and other places around the globe) you can only see the Google Instant function at work when you are logged into Google. But it seems it will be rolled out in the UK to users when NOT logged in, at some point.
Some key points mentioned in the Search Engine Land article:
it only functions on searches from the Google home page or from the search box at the top of a Google search results page
Google also says Instant will be automatically disabled when they can detect that a searcher has a slow internet connection.
Google Instant is localized. The predictions and search results that Google Instant displays will change depending on where Google thinks you’re located.
Google Instant is personalized. As you can see from the above, that organic search result for Seattle’s Hotel Monaco is a result I’ve visited several times in the past. During today’s announcement, Mayer confirmed that web history and personalized results will flow into Google Instant.
The basics of Google search are the same, including how results are ranked and how Google determines relevant results.
Other useful links from that article include:
How this will affect your clients traffic remains to be seen. While you shouldn’t panic, you should be prepared. Sarah Carling at SEO Chicks gives some good advice including you should explain to your clients what’s happening.
It would also be a good idea to set up tracking. I’ll be doing this for all my clients.
**Edit – Sadly, the tracking method I linked to above doesn’t work and Google says you don’t have to do anything more with analytics to track Google Instant visits. Also have a read of Pretty Pink Little Pixies with Mohicans which discusses the possibility of odd phrases appearing in analytics (and keep an open mind).**
I’m actually thankful us in the UK haven’t had it sprung on us just yet, it kind of gives us more time to get used to it and get feedback from our friends in the US and gauge the potential affects from visitors logged into their Google account before it hits the rest.
Feel free to add your comments 
Pingback: SEO is an Elephant | SEO Begin
Thanks for the trackback and link Kay. What do you mean keep an open mind
It is a slight worry but it is only a potential behaviour I have highlighted, but that lack of accuracy in our measurements can be hard enough without Instants arrival.
I am sure our analyrics friends will come up with the magic.
hey dean thanks for commenting
about it being potential behaviour is exactly what i meant re keep an open mind. It’s an interesting thought and I am keeping an eye for it too. With it only showing when logged into a google account from the google search page it could be a LONG time before we can identify any affects Instant has on visits to our clients sites. I can’t see any reason to make any changes to strategies right now and will continue as usual. The last thing SEO’s should do is make changes according to what they think might happen before they actually observe affects.
Is analyrics a new google tool that analyses song words?
I am from EU myself and for some reason i think this feature is really annoying! According to all the requests to disable or remove google instant this feature is really hated in most of Europe. Maybe it’s popular in US but not so demanding in EU. I personally hate it myself i liked it better when you just had simple auto complete now i have to use the google url with instant off. However Yahoo seems to be getting more users now.