Google Instant Makes SEO Irrelevant

Google today launched an ambitious effort to speed up searching. But what they really did is kill SEO.

Google says:

"Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was 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 you can scan a results page while you type."

The most important consideration for marketers or anyone who creates content, however, is in the bullets...

"Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need."

Here's what this means: 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. 

Think about it. When you push a door and it doesn't open quickly, you push harder. When you try to drive a car up a hill and it doesn't go as fast as you would like, you step on the gas. Feedback changes your behavior. 

Google Instant means no one will see the same web anymore, making optimizing it virtually impossible. Real-time feedback will change and personalize people's search behaviors.

::LATER: Google is saying expect traffic fluctuations around organic keywords.

Comments

[sansoftonline]

i totally disagree with these post, SEO is very important for the site to increase the popularity and Google is very helpful for it.Search Marketing Company

[WilliamC]

Funny, I thought following trends and keywords that were searched the most and ranking for them was what made SEO work.... Is that somehow going to change? No, the keywords may change, but the methodology will still be the same and working just fine. Sorry, but I have to rate this article as a braindead zero.

[webseo]

As SEO consultants we need to change with Google, find new ways and stay ahead!

[Rafael Montilla]

Good one Webseo!

[Drowlord]

Isn't the whole purpose of SEO to pervert search results and drive content-seekers away from the material they want and towards a commercial message? Good riddence.

[jeffchance]

Drowlord, you've described BlackHat SEO. Real SEO makes a site relevant so that it comes up and increases the traffic to that site, regardless of whether it's a commercial or informative or other type of site. Google distinguishes between the two so I hope that now you can as well.

[WilliamC]

jeffchance: actually, blackhat SEO is simply a misnomer for an SEO that uses certain risky 'methods' of doing the same thing as whitehat seo practitioners. Using blackhat methods does not mean they are taking users away from what they actually want. It simply means ranking pages using risky methods. There is no 'hat' as far as the people who take searchers and send them to unrelated, unwanted content purposely, they are simply scumbags :)

[Andrew]

This is quite ridiculous. If anything, it makes SEO even more relevant.

[Tee]

---------------WilliamC said: "Actually, blackhat SEO is simply a misnomer for an SEO that uses certain risky 'methods' of doing the same thing as whitehat seo practitioners. Using blackhat methods does not mean they are taking users away from what they actually want. It simply means ranking pages using risky methods. There is no 'hat' as far as the people who take searchers and send them to unrelated, unwanted content purposely, they are simply scumbags..."---------------I have to disagree with just about everything in the above statement.-- Blackhat SEO is a lot more than just "using risky methods of SEO." It's risky to use it, sure, but that's not what it *means.*-- Blackhat SEO methods *absolutely* take users away from what they want - that's one of the reasons it's called blackhat. Users want the truth, and blackhat SEO is all about deception. A user searching for "widgets" wants a list of sites about widgets - not a list of pharmacy sites that have the word "widgets" hidden on their web page so they'll appear in search results and can then try to sell pills to widget-searchers. (The latter is a common blackhat technique.) Whitehat SEO methods help ensure that only relevant widget sites show up in that user's search results. Blackhat is cheating. It's like using someone else's photo on your matchmaking website profile in order to score a date. Or falsifying your resume in order to get a job. Both use deception to achieve a goal. Meanwhile, Mr. Whitehat SEO uses his own photo and writes a truthful resume; not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because that's what both women and recruiters are looking for.-- Yes, there IS a hat for those who "send searchers to unrelated, unwanted content on purpose." It's called *blackhat.* I think that's why jeffchance brought it up.

[WilliamC]

Tee said "Blackhat SEO methods *absolutely* take users away from what they want "So how exactly does cloaking, such as Nike was exposed as doing, take people away from what they wanted to see?Exactly how does hidden text on pages do the above?I could go on and on, but those 2 examples of what even 'oogle' calls blackhat SEO are enough to prove my point. Blackhat 'methods' do NOT take anyone away from what they want.Unscrupulous PEOPLE who happen to USE these methods do that. There are plenty of the same scumbags using whitehat methods.Sorry, but as an SEO since the days when hotbot, altavista, yahoo, et al. were kings of the roost, I think I know well enough what blackhat actually is, unlike someone who obviously has read the wrong articles written by newbies with no clue.

[SEO Expert Daniel Duckworth]

I think there is some sound logic here, but the conclusion doesn't seem to follow. I wrote a bit of a follow up to this here: http://www.danielduckworth.com.au/blog/how-google-instant-changes-seo/

[Ron]

Your "no two people will see the same web" explanation isn't clear . (but maybe that’s the right way to get so many post comments..)I think Instant search will create an opposite search behavior from what you describe.By suggesting search terms Google Instant will decrease the amount & verity of terms search by users, therefore more people Will see the same results

[Ron]

Your "no two people will see the same web" explanation isn't clear . (but maybe that’s the right way to get so many post comments..)I think Instant search will create an opposite search behavior from what you describe.By suggesting search terms Google Instant will decrease the amount & verity of terms search by users, therefore more peopleWill see the same results (soory for the duplicate comments , i misspelled my site's url on the first one)

[Tee]

WilliamC, I've been in the biz as long, if not longer. (By that I mean as a consultant in the marketing industry - not as an SEO salesman.) The fundamentals of blackhat are based on exploiting loopholes and manipulating the way search engines work in order to cheat the system - usually for a quick, short-term profit.As far as your question about how blackhat hidden text directs users away from what they want to see - I'm not sure I can explain it any simpler than the widgets example. People using search engines are looking for legitimate, relevant results - not unrelated results. If someone opens a phone book in search of local florists, they expect to see a list of local florist businesses. If blackhat existed in this scenario, the list would show businesses from different industries mixed in with the legitimate florists. Instead of listing only florists, the first five entries on the list could be: florist, prepaid cell phones, personal injury lawyer, florist, discount pharmacy. The three non-florists made the list because they told the phone book they were florists (deception; blackhat). Obviously, phone books have found ways (ie verification methods) to prevent this scenario from happening... But on the web, the three non-florists can use blackhat techniques (hidden text, hidden links, cloaking, etc) to fool search bots into thinking they are florists. It happens all the time, and search engines spend millions trying to prevent it.Clearly we have different ideas of what "blackhat" is. But just to be clear, I'm not here to sell or promote anything.

[WilliamC]

Tee said "The fundamentals of blackhat are based on exploiting loopholes and manipulating the way search engines work"On this we agree. The problem is, you just shot yourself in the foot. SEO is manipulation of search results. Be it white or black methods, it is still 100% manipulation. Because you choose to use a risky method, considered blackhat, does not mean you will go out and redirect searchers looking for widgets to a porn site. The method does not force you to make someone searching for teen help sites instead get a teen porn site.People make those choices on their own and the method of search manipulation has absolutely nothing to do with that in the last. As I pointed out above, there is this same sort of scummy behaviour going on using pure whitehat methods. That does not automatically qualify those methods as blackhat. Sorry, if you can not see that it is humans that are evil, and not methods, then I can not help you, nobody can.Your attempts simply do not withstand the light of day

[Ed Hill]

I believe that SEO is still needed for web sites. Why? While Google Instant changes the way results are displayed to searchers, it doesn’t change the way the search results are scanned and indexed by Google. Google still has to scan your web site and use its algorithm to decide how relevant your web pages are for any particular keyword search.Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search Products and User Experience, revealed in a TechCrunch video interview – “You still type in queries. We still rank the results. Overall the ranking remains stable… For people who have optimized their site to achieve a certain outcome, that’s still the outcome when users do those queries.” Mayer concludes that SEO will not be affected much, “…basically the ranking that you’ve already achieved for your site, and the optimizations you’ve already done, will continue to reap rewards for you.”Ed Hill, SEO Director

[Eoin]

It will take a while for this to have an impact, SEO will remain the same for the foreseeable future, as with anything rest on your laurels and you're dead. Not so long ago meta keywords were good enough.

[Harrist]

Congratulation Google Love your title Jackpot :-)

[Way Out Marketing]

as long as there is a cat there is always to skin it. I believe that as search evolves the different ways that people are getting to the sites will evolve. For those that just focus on Google, they will be left behind. I remember when it was banner ads and side bar ads and then blog coments and so on. It keeps evolving because of how those that search changes.

[Body Wrap Guru]

I am finding that about 40% of our traffic is form sources other than just search engine traffic including Google and Bing (now prividing yahoo). It is coming from blogs, comments, forums, articles site and much more!. A true and good multi prong approach is best! Our body wraps sell better when we get traffic from articles site where people have read our articles versus just a pure search engine visitor!

[Business Loan Funders]

With new companies we are seeing more and more money going into marketing than ever before. Most start ups before would spend some of their business loan money on marketing, understanding that there was a ramp up period ofr sales. Now businesses understand that lack of sales revenue can wipe them out the very first year! Most all of them talk about getting good listings on Google but most don't understand how hard it is to get good listings on a brand new website. Now reading this I can see that they really need guidance!

[Tina]

I'm seriously worried about Google Instant as it "shuffles our SEO cards" in a quite unfair way and endangers years of exhausting SEO work. That's the way companies behave when they exercise a monopoly de facto or, in the "best" case, they misuse their dominant position.

[Promotional Products]

While I worry as well about my own SEO efforts, I can't help but think that this means it is absolutely critical to have relevant content and update frequently.

[Tina]

To be honest, relevant content and very frequent updates have constantly been one of my most practiced strategies but beleave me: they are not enough. Tina

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