The SEO world is buzzing today (even enough to get me to do a blog post) about the release of Google Instant, which updates search results in real time as you type in your search query. We’ve seen some of this functionality for quite a while now with Google Suggest, which provides real time search suggestions without actually executing a search until you make a selection.
The excitement around Google Instant is certainly justified because it’s likely to have significant impacts on the number and quality of referrals to millions of sites, from both paid and organic search results. Let’s see why…
Imagine you want to do a search on the phrase “stock market news.” Prior to Google Instant, that search produced the following result for me, with CNN.com in the top spot:
Let’s see how that same search evolves when you receive feedback in real time from Google Instant. As I start to type in the word “stock…,” I am [appropriately] presented with NASDAQ.com in the top position:
As I continue to type “stock market,” notice how the results change below the search box. The important thing to note here is that Google Instant predicts the results it shows, as opposed to just showing you results for what you’ve already entered. In the result above, NASDAQ.com is in the top position as soon as I type the word “stock,” but it’s actually showing the result set for the phrase “stock market.” In turn, bestgrowthstock.com shows up in the first position as soon as I’ve entered the space after “stock market_.” You can see below that I’m actually being shown a result set for the phrase “stock market today” even though I haven’t entered the word “today.”
Finally I complete my search for “stock market news” (assuming I didn’t get detoured along the way by all these great new results), and I end up with the same result set we had before, with CNN.com back up top…and with still more search options being presented:
The big question in my mind now is: Will Google Instant help or hurt long tail search?
Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim thinks Google Instant makes the long tail more important for SEOs. While I agree with some of the general observations Andy makes, I draw a different conclusion overall. In a nutshell, Andy explains that by presenting the user with new, longer search phrases for each new word typed in, it encourages a deeper dive, possibly for longer keyword combination than might previously have been considered. I agree to the extent that it makes search more engaging and a better tool for discovery, but most users of search are more task oriented – they aren’t there to play.
So will it really draw out the long tail? I really don’t think so.
As an SEO, your success with Google Instant will depend largely on what your optimization strategy has been up until now. If you’ve been targeting competitive two and three word phrases, you could easily see a benefit as your page hangs in there through those first few iterations of results. However, if you’ve been targeting very specific long tail phrases (as is often the case, especially in highly competitive ecommerce verticals), you may need to make some serious adjustments.
Let’s look at an example of why: let’s say you rank #1 for the phrase “brown leather messenger bag free shipping.” That’s a high converting key phase that’s clearly at the perfect point in the buy cycle. This person has already decided on the color and style for their new bag and now they just need to find who’s offering it with free shipping.
With Google Instant, how many search results will this searcher see before ever getting to the last word in the originally intended phrase? How many of those search results (and ads) might also contain the words “free shipping,” even though they wouldn’t normally appear in the organic results for the full phrase? Google has significantly increased the likelihood that a user will click on a shorter phrase (which presumably has a higher CPC – more revenue for Google) before they ever finish entering the long phrase they had in mind.
Let’s be realistic here: people optimize for the long tail in their SEM campaigns because they can get better converting words at a better price. So how does that help Google? It doesn’t. Don’t you think it works out better for Google if you do multiple searches and click on multiple ads with the highest possible CPCs?
There are tons of other things at work here including browsing history and location, so I’d love to see what people are observing, especially on long tail phrases like the one above. I have a feeling some of those sites that are crushing long tail phrases are going to be hurt.
