Google Instant Search Announced today…

Today, Google unveiled their new search feature called Google Instant, which allows the search results to change in real-time, as you search. This innovative idea has sparked enthusiasm amongst US users as showcased in the video below:

Google announced that the purpose of Google Instant is to deliver users with faster, dynamic results and provide further predictive suggestion to guide users to find what they were really looking for.

Currently, Google Instant has started to roll out in certain countries with Google domains specific to the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia. There is however an additional restriction to users who would like to test this out – Google users will need to have the following browsers: Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8 in order for Google Instant Search to work.

Those Australian Google users who would like to get their hands on this feature can do so by signing into their Google account and installing Google Instant Search to their search results page. You can do this by going to the About Google Instant page and clicking on the “Try It Now” button.

I’ve been playing with the results this morning and it’s quite fascinating to see Google Instant results in action:

So if you have nothing searched in the SERPs, then you get a blank canvas. As you start searching away, the results and Google suggestion changes dynamically based on the words typed… for example:

From what can be seen at this stage, the results from both natural and paid search have not changed in terms of rankings, but it’s going to be quite interesting to uncover how Google Instant will impact the science of Search Engine Optimisation or Paid Search. Search Engine Land came out with an awesome article called Google Instant Search: The Complete User’s Guide, which talks about how Google Instant works and if they believe that Google Instant will impact rankings.

Matt Cutts also had his say on his thoughts of Google Instant Search, where he responds to the following question – “Will Google Instant change search engine optimization?:

“I think over time it might. The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time. 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.”

Source: Matt Cutts Blog – Thoughts on Google Instant

Obviously, like anything that Google brings out there is initially a lot of hype and speculation, especially in the Search Marketing world; but only time will tell how Google Instant will truly impact the search engine results and how SEOers will have to change their ways of optimising websites.

Also another food for thought… does this mean that Google’s new product offering will further widen the gap between Google and the other search engines, such as Bing? Will “Instant Search” strength Google’s hold on users and on search advertisings?

Watch this space for more on Google Instant….

Update: If you’re trying to get Google Instant.. here’s a quick link you can use to get it working — http://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy

Tags: google instant, google search, search results