WebProNews

Tag: Google Instant

  • Google in Trouble (Again) over Autocomplete

    Google finds itself embroiled in another legal case stemming from their autocomplete feature in search. This time, it’s former German First Lady Bettina Wulff, who claims that Google has defamed her and “destroyed her reputation” with its instant search.

    Wullf, the wife of former German President Christian Wulff has battled persistent rumors that she worked as an escort before the two met. The 38-year-old has denied the rumors, but of course that usually has no bearing on whether or not they continue to exist online.

    In this case, a Google search for her name does yield two autocomplete results consistent with the rumors. “Bettina Wulff escort” and “Bettina Wulff prostituierte” show up in multiple languages.

    Here’s what Google suggests when you perform a search for “Bettina Wulff” on Google’s German site:

    And the same autocomplete results appear when searching on Google’s English site:

    This definitely is not the first time that Google has found itself under fire for its autocomplete results. In June, Google settled out of court with French anti-discrimination groups over the charge that Google autocomplete was labeling certain celebrities as “Jewish.” Even if you or I don’t feel like being labeled “Jewish” is discriminatory, some groups do and they accused the search giant of “creating probably to greatest Jewish history file ever.”

    Back in December of 2011, Google was forced to pay a $65,000 fine because one of its autocomplete suggestions labeled a French insurance company as “esroc,” meaning “crook.”

    Back in April of 2011, Google lost a case in Italy and was forced to manually intervene and eliminate autocomplete suggestions that labeled one man a “truffatore” and a “truffa” (con man and fraud).

    Of course, Google is not suggesting that Wulff is a prostitute, or the French President is Jewish. Google searchers are. Google’s autocomplete is based on algorithms that factor in popularity of certain searches:

    “As you type, Google’s algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities and the contents of web pages indexed by Google. If you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, you might also see search queries from relevant searches that you’ve done in the past.

    Predicted queries are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely algorithmic factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. The autocomplete data is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries,” they say on their support page.

    Google will, from time to time, intervene and alter autocomplete results. The main instances of this are with cases involving “pornography, violence, hate speech, and copyright infringement.” Today, we learned that Google is now censoring suggestions of The Pirate Bay (torrent site) in autocomplete for instance.

    Google’s autocomplete results are simply expressions or current searches around the world (plus a little bit of your own personal search history). They don’t just make this stuff up. Although recent decisions would suggest that authorities in some countries feel the company has a duty to manually intervene in cases where reputation is on the line.

    [sueddeutsche.de via TechCrunch]

  • Google Informs Us That Instant Pages Works Great

    How comfortable are you with Google’s prerendering capabilities? Do you like the idea of your site loading faster in Chrome thanks to this technology? The idea behind Instant Pages is to immediate load the top search result for a particular query, so, when it’s clicked, it immediately loads up in your browser. Naturally, when Google discusses this technology, it refers to its Chrome browser, the prerendering works in the following browsers:

    Chrome v5 or higher, Firefox v3/4, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8/9.

    As for Instant Pages, a quick look at some of the cons that immediately popped up shows they are awfully weak, if not outright laughable:

    CON

    There are those, however, that believe Google Instant can waste much time as it saves. “You could end up getting distracted by the suggestions and read an article that you weren’t even looking for,” Heather McClain, 16, a waitress, told the BBC. “It will probably end up costing you more time than it saves you.”

    Or it could be Heather is like most tween Internet users who get distracted by just about anything.

    CON

    Another check in the con column against Google Instant is that it may hurt SEO marketers. Searchers will be less likely to click through to a second page of search results, critics say, which will give marketers fewer keywords to work with.

    Since when was it Google’s job to ensure SEO remains a viable industry?

    All of that aside, over at the Google Webmaster Central Blog, there’s a post discussing the benefits of Instant Pages. The amount of time save particularly stood out:

    We’ve been closely watching performance and listening to webmaster feedback. Since Instant Pages rolled out we’ve saved more than a thousand years of ours users’ time. We’re very happy with the results so far, and we’ll be gradually increasing how often we trigger the feature.

    For those of you worried about pageviews and are worried about how prerendering will affect these numbers, Google addresses this too:

    …only results the user visits will be counted. If your site keeps track of pageviews on its own, you might be interested in the Page Visibility API, which allows you to detect when prerendering is occurring and factor those out of your statistics. If you use an ads or analytics package, check with them to see if their solution is already prerender-aware; if it is, in many cases you won’t need to make any changes at all.

    For those of you who are lamenting the fact that your site isn’t near the top of the results for keywords you’re targeting, Instant Pages isn’t going to help or hurt you. With that in mind, it’s isn’t going to hurt if your site is at the top of the results, either. In fact, the opposite seems a lot more likely, especially if your site ranks highly for a competitive keyword.

  • Google Toolbar 7 Gives Internet Explorer Google Instant

    Google launched a new version of the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. Google Toolbar 7 brings Google Instant and some new personalization features to the table.

    “If you’ve used Instant on google.com or in Chrome, you’ll be right at home with Toolbar Instant,” says Google’s Allen Huang, Associate Product Manager on the Toolbar. “Just start typing in the search box and search predictions and results will appear instantly as you type, getting you the results you want faster.”

    As a Chrome user, I can honestly say that I can hardly remember what it was like before Google Instant from the browser, even though it’s not been available for that long. Most people seem to like it.

    “This new version of Toolbar is simpler, cleaner and emphasizes what’s important to you. The tools that you use most will remain visible on the toolbar, while buttons that you haven’t used recently will be moved to the new ‘More’ button,” says Huang. “s you discover and use particular tools that help your browsing experience, like Share or Translate, they’ll automatically appear on the toolbar, making your most relevant tools easy to access. This personalization is stored only on your computer, so no information is sent to Google unless your usage statistics are enabled.”

    The toolbar also comes with new privacy settings accessible from a single menu, where you can adjust your preferences for things like PageRank, spell check, and SideWiki.

    Google Toolbar Privacy Settings

    The toolbar is available in English only, but will be available in other languages in the future. Current Toolbar users will be automatically upgraded over the coming weeks.

  • Google Instant Achieves Opt-Out Rate Of 2%

    The concerns that Google Instant might make incorrect guesses, act as a flashy distraction, or focus too much on quantity versus quality (in relation to results) have apparently been dismissed.  A Google employee shared an impressive fact yesterday: the opt-out rate is under three percent.

    Austin Carr wrote after an interview, "According to Ben Gomes, the lead engineer on Google Instant, the engine’s newest feature has had a remarkably small attrition rate: Roughly 98% of users are using Instant, leaving around just 2% of users who have opted out."

    That represents a big PR win for Google.  Although it’s something of a cliche, it might honestly be difficult to get 98 percent of people to agree the sky’s blue on a clear day.  Consider that someone would want to use an adjective like "azure," and the occasional crazy might supply a term along the lines of "muskrat."

    What’s more, Google Instant is making itself measurably useful.  Carr wrote, "Since launch, Google users are typing 5% fewer characters, and reaching results 10% faster than they were with traditional search.  On average, says Gomes, users are seeing results about 4 to 5 seconds quicker than they were before the company introduced Instant."

    GoogleSo the risk Google took when tweaking its famous search engine has worked out for just about everyone.

    Now it’s hard not to wonder whether other changes will follow under the company’s new CEO.

  • Chrome Beta Gets Google Instant, WebGL 3D Tech (And More)

    Google recently held a Chrome event in which it showed off some new things they are doing with their popular web browser (not to mention the opening of the Chrome Web Store and the introduction of Chrome OS). 

    Now, some of the things Google showed off are available in a beta release of the browser. For one, you can turn on Chrome Instant (Google Instant for Chrome’s Omnibox). If turned on, web pages you frequently visit will begin to load as soon as you start typing. Search results and "in-line predictions" will also instantly appear.

    Google is also bringing Chrome’s existing "sandboxing" technology for web pages to the Flash Player Chrome plug-in (on Windows). 

    "The sandbox adds an additional layer of protection to further guard against malicious pages that try to hijack your computer or steal private information from your hard drive," explains Chrome software engineer Carlos Pizano. "Based on this groundwork in the beta, we’ll be bringing the sandboxed Flash Player to Chrome for Mac and Linux in future releases as well."

    The beta also includes WebGL, a new technology for 3D graphics the company showed off at the event. "WebGL is a 3D graphics API for JavaScript that developers can use to create fully 3D web apps," explains software engineer Kenneth Russell. "It is based on the OpenGL ES 2.0 API, which should be familiar to many 3D graphics developers. Google, Mozilla, Apple, Opera and graphics hardware vendors have been working together to standardize WebGL for over a year now, and since the spec is just about final at this point, we wanted to get our implementation out there for feedback."

    One application that utilizes WebGL is the "Body Browser," which Google highlighted at the event. This is actually now available as a Google Labs experiment (it was built by a Googler in their "20% time"). 

    There is a gallery available where you can look at available Chrome experiments for WebGL.

  • Google Instant Goes Mobile Globally

    Google Instant Goes Mobile Globally

    Google announced today that Google Instant for mobile is now available globally – in 28 languages and in 40 countries. You have to have an Android 2.2+ or iOS4 device to use it though. 

    If you have one of these devices, you can simply go to google.com in your mobile browser, and it tap on the Google Instant link beneath the search box to enable it. This is somewhat interesting considering when Google Instant was first launched, you had to disable it if you didn’t want it, rather than enable it if you did want it. 

    Google Instant Mobile Rolls out

    Google first began rolling out Google Instant for Mobile on some devices in the U.S. back in October. We’re still waiting for the feature to come to the desktop browser, but that’s on the way. 

    This week, Google held a special Chrome Event, at which the main attraction was the unveiling of the long-awaited Chrome OS. However, the company showed some things they’re doing with the Chrome browser first, and one of those was Google Instant from the Omnibox. 

    Google Instant on Omnibox

    It will not only load search results instantly, but it will actually load sites themselves in the browser, as you type. They demonstrated the feature by typing an "E" and automatically getting ESPN, a "T" and getting Twitter, etc. This is determined by your browsing habits. Presumably if you go to esquire.com more than you go to espn.com, that would come up for "E" instead.

    The company did not specify when this will be available in Chrome, but it should be relatively soon. Remember that Google’s goal is to release a new stable version of the browser once every six weeks. 

  • Google Instant Coming to Chrome

    At a special event for Chrome today, Google announced that its browser is up to 120 million users, representing 300% growth since January of this year. 

    Chrome Experiences 300% Growth This Year

    In addition to that, the company announced Google Instant for the Chrome omnibox. You can type a single letter, and it will load an actual site in the browser – not just search results like what we’ve seen from Google Instant thus far. Chrome knows the sites that you go to often and adapts the functionality to this. 

    If you go to ESPN.com a lot, you can simply type "E" in the omnibox and it will automatically bring up the site. You can type "T" and get to Twitter, "C" and get to CNN, etc.  It looks like it still shows search results when what you type doesn’t match a site you go to often. 

    Google Instant on Omnibox

    "The most important thing is that it’s all going to be really, really fast," said Google’s Brian Rakowski describing many of the ways Chrome continues to get faster, including loading PDFs, and handling graphic content.

    It’s unclear at this point when exactly Google Instant for the Omnibox will be available to everybody, but we’ll let you know when we know. 

    The company is also expected to announce the launch of the long-awaited Chrome OS at the event. Stay tuned.

     

  • Select Droid Devices Now Getting Google Instant Beta

    It appears as though a beta version of Google Instant has been spotted in the wild, according to Droid Life. If you have an Incredible, Droid, or Droid X chances are you now have the ability to use Google Instant.

    Do you like Google Instant? Tell us your thoughts.

    A Droid Life forum user posted the following…

    ”Hey everyone. I looked around for this and didn’t see anything so this might be breaking news. On my moto droid, on the google search page, under the search box, there is a line that says "instant (beta) is on". Never noticed that before. It works alright, it is a bit slow on bringing up the instant results.

    Posting from my phone, so I’m not sure if I can post the screenshot I took, will post it tomorrow morning.”

    It was rumored that Google planned an Instant mobile rollout shortly after the browser based one was complete, which appears to be the case here. With some phones already having a beta test a full rollout shouldn’t be far behind.

    Would you use Google Instant on your mobile device? Let us know.

    This story is still developing so stay tuned to WebProNews for further information as it becomes available.

  • Yahoo: Our Version of Instant Too Early For its Time

    As we reported earlier, Yahoo has some new search features like slideshows above search results for topics on its Trending Now lists, an app for Netflix members to add DVDs to their queue directly from the search results page and shortcuts for entertainment related topics that include images, articles, videos, tweets, event listings and ratings. 

    Yahoo shared a bit more info with us about the features. "The features launched this week leverage partnerships with Netflix, Songkick, and MovieTickets.com," Yahoo’s Meagan Busath. "We’re taking a multi-faceted approach to bringing people the most comprehensive, relevant information about the topics they’re interested in, and partnerships is one part of that approach."

    "The new features supplement the organic listings provided by the Microsoft search platform," she says. "Our new intelligent shortcuts for music, movie and news queries appear above the organic listings, and include the most relevant content from a range of sources across Yahoo!, from our partners, and in some cases from the Microsoft search platform."

    As you may know, Yahoo has indicated that Google Instant infringes on patents it holds. We asked if Yahoo would consider actually launching an "instant" search feature, showing results as users type, in the future. "Both our new features and Google Instant show that there is more room to innovate the search experience, which remains our commitment and focus," says Busath.

    "The notion of predicting a given person’s intended search was actually first introduced by Yahoo!’s ‘Instant Search’ feature in 2005, for which Yahoo! filed patents," she adds. "While Yahoo!’s initial version of ‘instant’ search came too early for its time, we continue to build upon that technology in the effort to enhance results with personal relevance and context, and to better predict a user’s intent with useful tools such as Yahoo! Search Assist."

    Microsoft recently joined Yahoo in criticizing Google Instant. Meanwhile, Google continues to add the feature to more types of search and more countries. 

  • Google Adds Instant to More Search Types, Countries

    Google announced some new features for Google Instant. They haven’t released it for the browser or for mobile yet, but they have added some desktop functionality. 

    First off, they have added keyboard navigation, so you can use Google Instant without touching your mouse, should you choose to do so. The navigation lets you scroll through Google’s search suggestions to bring up more instant results. 

    Secondly, Google Instant has now been added to more of Google’s search options in the left panel, including Videos, News, Books, Blogs, Updates, and Discussions. For some reason, Images is not included.

    Google also announced that Google Instant is rolling out in the domains for 12 new countries, including: Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine.

    Google Instant was available for seven countries until now. 

  • Microsoft Joins Yahoo In Criticizing Google Instant

    Many people laughed when Microsoft chose to call Bing a "decision engine," but the logic behind that name was apparent today when Microsoft exec Yusuf Mehdi spoke at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.  Mehdi indicated that he thinks Google Instant represents a step in the wrong direction.

    Mehdi, the senior vice president of the Online Audience Business, said according to Juan Carlos Perez, "Both companies are focused on the notion of improving [search] performance for people.  Where we’re different is that for us it’s about speed to task completion.  It’s about getting what you want accomplished, it’s not about getting a lot more results."

    That’s a smart concept.  Think of it this way: it’s nice when a mechanic knows the make, and model, and year of your vehicle and orders parts accordingly.  It’d be less helpful if he showed you a selection of parts for all cars of a certain make and all cars of a certain model year before landing upon the right thing.

    Yusuf MehdiOf course, in practice, Google Instant can save people a few keystrokes, and it’s possible for Google users to just turn the feature off, as well.

    Anyway, Mehdi’s comments are reminiscent of something Shashi Seth, the senior vice president of Yahoo Search Products, recently said, so it looks like neither Bing nor Yahoo is too jealous of Google’s tech.

    As for a couple side projects Bing is working on, Perez wrote, "Mehdi also showed Bing’s upcoming home page, viewed with the company’s latest browser IE 9, streaming a full-screen video of whales swimming in the ocean . . . .  He also showed the ability for people to zoom deeply into a Bing full-screen background image of Mount Rushmore."

  • Worried About Google Instant? Maybe You’re Worrying Too Much About Search

    The way people search is changing. That much is clear. Some of that is their own doing, and some of it is the doing of search engines. People are increasingly going to apps or social media for retrieving different types of information. Google recently released Google Instant and expects to change user behavior with it.

    Are you worried about the impact of Google Instant on your site? Comment here.

    Last week, we discussed what impact Google Instant might have on SEO. The topic has been widely discussed around the web. The conclusion some of us reached is that SEO will not die, but will continue to change, but one still can’t help but wonder how to divide efforts among SEO and other forms of online marketing. Neil Jones at ISEdb.com writes:

    Getting top spot is now even more important. If you can dig out some heat maps of Google search results from a couple of years ago, you will see people were clicking all over the page, If you look at recent heat maps they have managed to corral people into predominantly clicking on the top 3 results.

    It has always been important to get high rankings but now it is looking like; if you’re not number 1 you’re not getting the click. The combination of Google Instant and the sponsored search results pushes the organic SERPS right down the page, in a lot of the searches I have done, the only result that is left above the fold is the number one listing, Real estate on the first page was tough enough to come. Now it could be clicks that are going to get harder to come that are unless you’re number one.

    I don’t know if its as cut and dry as "if you’re not number 1, you’re not getting the click", but it might be reason enough to re-evaluate how your marketing efforts are divided up. 

    Look at YouTube Instant. This is a project that a student whipped up in a few hours and almost immediately had the whole web’s attention (at least the tech web’s), not to mention the attention of YouTube itself. More importantly, look at how he got that attention – a great deal of it came from a combination of Twitter and press. 

    Twitter and press often feed off each other, and can bring exposure to something on a massive scale, in no time. I’m not saying Twitter and press should replace your search efforts, or that it’s easy to do what the creator of YouTube Instant did. Viral isn’t an easy nut to crack. I’m just saying, search isn’t everything. Do something interesting. Make something interesting. Say something interesting. Sometimes that alone can go along way. Even if it doesn’t go viral, it might leave a lasting impression on someone. 

    Google’s never going to give up its list of ranking factors.

    Now that it’s been around for over a week, do you think Google Instant is a game-changer? Tell us what you think. 

  • Site Compiles Google Instant Blacklist

    Site Compiles Google Instant Blacklist

    Last week, Danny Sullivan posted an article at Search Engine Land about the things Google Instant blacklists – the words you can type in the search box that won’t deliver Instant results, mainly due to potential offensiveness. 2600.com has taken things a step further, and is actually compiling what it is calling the Google Blacklist.

     

    "Obviously, all you have to do is hit return to get the results like you always could," the site says. "However, even when your request isn’t blacklisted, you’re not getting the SAME results that you would get by hitting return. Entering "murder" into the search bar gets you suggestions of mostly band names. It’s only after you hit return that you can learn the other sinister meaning of the word. What we have here is a demonstration of how content can be filtered, controlled, and ultimately suppressed. It is indeed a good thing that Google isn’t evil."

     

    Google Instant Murder results

    The site has called upon users to help it add to the list any words that cause Google Instant to return a blank screen. What can one do with this information? I’m not sure. Maybe give you some ideas of keywords to avoid bidding on? Most of these words are likely only coveted by businesses that would expect such blacklisting treatment (whether they feel this is justified or not). 

     

    It is interesting to see which words Google has not blacklisted, compared to those it has. I’m not going to get into all of the specific words here. You can see that at the site if you like. Obviously, it contains offensive language.

  • Yahoo Patents May Cover Google Instant

    No one’s launched a product or sent in the lawyers just yet, but it looks like Yahoo is on Google’s tail in terms of instant search and might trip up its rival with a legal objection.  Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President of Yahoo Search Products, has indicated that Google Instant infringes on perhaps five patents Yahoo holds.

    Let’s start with the legal issue.  Cade Metz recently interviewed Seth and reported this afternoon, "Seth reiterated that Yahoo! had introduced a Google Instant-like service five years before its rival, and he said that Yahoo! owns ‘about five . . . broad’ patents that cover Google’s technology."

    Yahoo could use those patents to seek an injunction or pursue a settlement, although the company hasn’t committed to that course of action.

    YahooAs for what sort of instant search product it’s developing, Metz wrote, "Yahoo! is working on a system that will better predict what netizens are searching for – without continuously updating search results . . . .  If Yahoo! determines that you’re looking for Martin Luther King’s birthday . . . it should simply show you his birthday – not an entire search result page filled mostly with information you’re not interested in."

    That sounds like a smart approach.  Unfortunately, a release date wasn’t discussed.

    We’ll of course be sure to report if Yahoo files any lawsuits or updates its search engine in a significant way.

  • Google Instant in the Browser Means Google Results ALL the Time

    When Google launched Google Instant last week, the company said it would come to mobile and the browser (search boxes and the Chrome Omni box) within the next few months. WebProNews asked Google about how the feature would translate to the browser.

    Specifically, we wondered if using the feature directly from the browser would automatically take over the entire page the user is currently on, with Google results. If the following clip from the German GoogleWatch Blog is any indication, than that is pretty much exactly what it will do.

    The video comes from Google Instant in Chrome Labs in Chromium (the open source browser Chrome is based on). Google Instant has been activated in this capacity as pointed out by MG Siegler at TechCrunch. He says that "most features that come to Chromium, usually find their way to Chrome in relatively short order — though they have to then travel through the different levels of Chrome itself (dev then beta then stable)."

    If this is indicative of how Google Instant will work from the browser in general, it’s going to be interesting to see the reactions. If a user wants to just go to a URL, they would theoretically be presented with Google results for that site before they even finish typing, and might be inclined to go through Google to get to the site. 

    "It’s premature for us to get into details about future implementations," Google’s Jake Hubert told us when we asked how the feature would work.

    Google Instant in Chrome Labs in Chromium is only available for Windows for now.

  • “YouTube Instant” Creator May Soon Be Working for Google

    Update: Peter Kafka at All Things Digital reports that Feross is already working as an intern at Facebook. That’s interesting, considering the growing competition between these two companies.

    Original Article: Google Instant created a lot of buzz this past week, both negative and positive. It also created some inspiration. Feross Aboutkhadijeh, a computer science student at Stanford, created his own little "YouTube Instant", and attracted a lot of attention because of it. 
     

    He just so happened to catch Google’s attention, and YouTube CEO Chad Hurley has offered him a job via Twitter (hat tip to Ben Parr at Mashable). 
     
    Hurley tweeted, "Hey @FreeTheFeross! Loving YouTube Instant…want a job? ;)"
     
    Feross responded, "Hey @Chad_Hurley. Glad you liked YouTube Instant! Is that a for-real job offer ;)"
     
    Despite all the winking, it looks like it may have been a real offer. Hurley then responded, "@FreeTheFeross Are you read to leave school? 🙂 I’ll send you a DM.
     
    It will be interesting to see what materializes from this. Google could no doubt implement Google Instant functionality in YouTube search results without much problem, but YouTube Instant (at least the current incarnation actually plays videos instantly based on what you type.

    YouTube Instant

    Michael Hart, another developer, has created "Google Maps Instant" and is not shy about letting Google know he wants a job too (hat tip to Alexia Tsotsis on that one).

  • Google Talks Instant’s Effect on Web History

    As noted in an earlier article, Google Instant may log SERPs for unfinished queries in your browser’s history, if you pause for long enough, before completing your query. WebProNews asked Google about this. 
     
    "For signed-in users with Web History enabled searching on the Google.com homepage or results page, we continue to show all the searches they perform," Google’s Jake Hubert tells us. "With Google Instant, this includes searches when the user pauses for three or more seconds and/or clicks on a search result. These queries are explicitly marked to indicate results were shown for three seconds but had no click."
     
    Maureen O’Connor at Valleywag writes, "The new Google Instant guesses what you’re searching for while you’re typing, and retrieves results before you finish. It’s the T-9 of search engines. And it means buying an "erector set" will make everyone think you have ‘erectile dysfunction.’" If everyone means anybody looking at your web history, she might be right. 
     

    Upon the announcement of Google Instant, the company said that they would be rolling out the feature to mobile and browsers (search boxes and Chrome address bar) in the next few months. I have been wondering exactly how this will work.  

    Will using this feature automatically take over a page the user is currently on with Google results? With the chrome address bar specifically, what if a user just wants to go to a site and not Google? Will they be presented with results before they even have a chance to complete the typing of a URL?
     
    "It’s premature for us to get into details about future implementations," Hubert says. 
     
    That’s fair, but this will be an interesting element of Google Instant to keep an eye on. If it turns out to do that, some webmasters may take issue.
  • Does Google Instant Mark the End of SEO?

    Does Google Instant Mark the End of SEO?

    A reporter (I believe she was from AdAge) attending Google’s Q&A about Google Instant pointed out that the new search feature tends to favor big brands. This isn’t really surprising, as it is these brands that are more likely to be searched for most often. After all, they’re big because people know them. 

    Do you think Google Instant is a threat to SEO? Share your thoughts.

    iCrossing has a list of brands that come up when you enter each letter of the alphabet (not all are brands, but many are). A is for Amazon (not Apple), B is for Bank of America, M is for Mapquest (not Microsoft), N is for Netflix, P is for Pandora, V is for Verizon, and Y is for Yahoo. 

    You must keep in mind, however, that the instant results are personalized. Google takes into account things like your location and your surfing habits when providing you results. 

    Google Instant doesn’t necessarily make things any easier on small businesses, but it’s showing big brands in cases where Google probably would’ve suggested big brands anyway. If users do a lot of local searches, it’s possible that Google could show more local results (including small businesses) for those users, I’m speculating. 

    Steve Rubel says that Google Instant makes SEO irrelevant. "Here’s what this means," he says. "No two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick – and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors."

    He’s not wrong about that, but I’m not sure that makes SEO irrelevant. Google has been showing different results to different users for quite a while now. This is really just an extension of that. 

    Businesses might want to try (and have other people try) doing searches for keywords that they would expect people to use to find their site. See what comes up (keep in mind the personalization) and work from there. Easier said than done no doubt, but it’s something to consider. Think about what kinds of people will be interested in your products and what other kind of searches they might be doing. It’s not a science, but again, perhaps something worth considering. It might mean getting to know your customers better, which can’ t be a bad thing anyway. Maybe it means asking them to take surveys. Maybe it doesn’t. 

    The whole thing doesn’t help organic SEO’s case in the old SEO vs PPC debate. I’ll give Rubel that. 

    Speaking of PPC, Google says Google Instant changes the way it counts impressions. "It’s possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels," says Google’s Dan Friedman. "However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need."

    Google Instant with Ads

    Trevor Claiborne of the Google Analytics Team says that Analytics users might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume and traffic for organic keywords. "For example, you may find that certain keywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward," he says. 

    You should read this post on the Google Webamster Central blog. It says that impressions are measured in three ways: the traditional way, when a user clicks on a link that appears as they begin to type, and when a user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds.

    Sidenote: Google’s Matt Cutts weighed in on the whole will Google Instant kill SEO thing. "Almost every new change at Google generates the question ‘Will X kill SEO?’ Here’s an video I did last year, but it still applies," he says.

    He says, however that over time, it could change SEO. "The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time," says Cutts. "For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of the search results."

    Google Instant will likely become increasingly important to search marketing, because not only will it roll out to more countries (it’s starting in the U.S. and a select few others), but it will soon come to mobile and browser search boxes. Each of these factors will greatly increase how often Instant results are displayed. 

    The mobile factor actually has implications for Google retaining a substantial amount of mobile searches in general. The better (and quicker) Google can give results on any kind of query, the less reason users have to go to different apps to acquire certain information. 

    Google clearly said that ranking stays the same with Google Instant, but it will change the way people search. It will affect their search behavior, and that is what search marketers are going to have to think about more than ever. You should also consider that some people will simply deactivate the feature, leaving them open to Google’s standard results.

    Tell us what you think of Google Instant. Do you like it or not? 

  • Facebook Surpasses Google, Bing Had Instant Last Year

    One story that’s capturing a lot of attention today is Facebook surpassing Google in time spent on site in the U.S. Silicon Alley Insider has a chart illustrating as much. 

    While this is certainly good news for Facebook, it doesn’t necessarily mean bad things for Google. These two are increasingly becoming bigger competitors, but Google, at least the search engine part, doesn’t always aim to keep users on its site. Sure, it does to some extent with things like Google Places and hosted AP articles, but the release of Google Instant this week clearly shows that Google wants to get users what they’re searching for faster. 

    That’s not to say that Google doesn’t want users sticking around. I think we’ll see more direct answers coming from Google itself in its search results. Google Squared is a big part of this. 

    Speaking of Google Instant, Danny Sullivan has an interesting article about the company disguising relevancy issues with the feature. Also, I have another article up about Google Instant’s effect on web history, and how it might work from the browser search box and Chrome address bar. 

    Janko Roettgers at NewTeeVee points out that early demos of Google TV appear to display a Google Instant-like functionality. We should see it soon enough, as Google TV devices should be shipping this month. 

    USA Today has an interesting interview with a Bing exec who talks about how a feature similar to Google Instant was built for Bing last year. 

    ProgammableWeb reports that USA Today is opening up its data to developers via an API. According to Romin Irani, the newspaper hopes to raise internal awareness about its databases first, with public access and a developer contest to follow. 

    Ask announced that Bloglines will be shut down October 1. " Not an easy decision, especially considering our loyal and supportive (not to mention patient) user base, but, ultimately, the right one given business reasons simply too hard to ignore," the company says.

    Caitlin Fitzsimmons reports that Facebook has filed for a patent on social CAPTCHAs. The title is "USING SOCIAL INFORMATION FOR AUTHENTICATING A USER SESSION". The abstact says, "A social CAPTCHA is presented to authenticate a member of the social network. The social CAPTCHA includes one or more challenge questions based on information available in the social network, such as the user’s activities and/or connections in the social network. The social information selected for the social CAPTCHA may be determined based on affinity scores associated with the member’s connections, so that the challenge question relates to information that the user is more likely to be familiar with. A degree of difficulty of challenge questions may be determined and used for selecting the CAPTCHA based on a degree of suspicion."

    We knew Windows Phone 7 would be here this year, but there is now a launch date, according to Pocket-lint, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. That date would be October 11. 

    Reuters is reporting that a judge has reinstated eBay’s 28.4% stake in Craigslist, but Craigslist still gets to keep eBay off its board. 

    An interesting piece from Jonny Evans at ComputerWorld discusses how big Apple’s AirPlay is going to be for the company. This is one of Apple’s recent announcements that may have been overshadowed by some of the others, but has pretty big implications. 

    Jenna Wortham at the New York Times’ Bits blog talks about a new social news service from Betaworks and the NYT. It will be called News.me and will be personalized. 

    TechRadar reports that Google says Android isn’t optimized for tablets, but the Gingerbread and Honeycomb versions (the next two) likely will be. 

    Michael Arrington says some ex-MySpace execs are working on a new startup called Namesake, which is in private beta. The exact nature of it is still unknown.