How Google Instant will affect the search Business

What is google Instant:

Last week, Google announced its new search service called Google Instant. Compared to the existing search process on Google – which suggests search terms and displays search results only after the user clicks on the ‘Google Search’ button or presses the ‘Enter’ key, the ‘Instant’ version not only suggests search terms but also displays search results as soon as the user begins to type or key in words in the search bar

For instance, if a user enters the key word ‘coc’, Google Instant will suggest words like ‘Coca-Cola’, ‘coco’, ‘coconut’ and ‘coconut water’ and simultaneously show search results for ‘Coca-Cola’. Now, if the user adds the character ‘k’ to ‘coc’, the search suggestions and results displayed below the search bar will change instantly. In the case of ‘cock’, it shows results related to cocktails

Similar to search results, the search ads served via Google AdWords programme on the right side or top of the search results page as sponsored links, will also begin to appear as the user keys in keywords, even before the user finishes or enters the complete search term. Thus, a user will get to see different and more search ads during the search process on Google Instant

Google instant was based on key technical insight that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that user can scan a results page while you type. Google expects that:

• Using Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search
• If everyone uses Google Instant globally, google estimate this will save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day. That’s 11 hours saved every second

Effect on the Organic search Business (search engine optimization)

Google Instant search will have more impact on the organic search business (search engine optimisation) as compared to the paid search (search advertising using Google AdWords programme). Earlier, the focus was on choosing the right set of keywords to make search engine optimisation (SEO) effective. However, from now onwards, the relevance of each word of a search term will become important and search agencies/advertisers will be required to focus on the order of keywords of search term. For example “cheap hotels in Delhi” and “Delhi cheap hotels” could predict different results while the search process is on - based on the order of keywords. However, in the earlier Google search system, both keywords/search terms were treated equally

So the real challenge for the search agencies/advertisers will be to optimize and create content/pages related to each word for a long tail search term

Effect on the Paid Search Business

The advertiser for paid search business pay on the basis of ad group (it represents a grouping or collection of keywords for which a search ad is being served) which means that the advertiser will end up buying more keywords.

In the US, various websites have already started reporting fluctuations in their traffic figures and only future holds the true proportion of the impact.