Google Instant

[ccRicers]

This boy created an instant search-like feature for YouTube, and now he got a job offer by YouTube on the spot. Crazy.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...ml?from=smh_sb

[SearchSub]

It's interesting to see that a lot of people who search use their toolbar / shortcut keys and do not go directly to Google..

It would be great to see the break down of this ine.g.
% of user using toolbar search
% users using Google page search etc..

[betty1]

The main components of Google Instant are :1) Predictions 2) Instant Results 3)Scroll To Search and Google instant has not affected the SEO irankings. So no need to worry. Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. Google Instant is being referred as search at the speed of thought.

[maxpilot]

Will people change their keyword phrase because Google instant suggests a similar phrase as soon as you typed in the first few words? If more people do that, popular keyword phrase will become more popular, which means the decreasing importance of 'long tail' keywords. This will make life more difficult for small websites.

[Stomme poes]

Google Instant seems to be interfering with the Orca screen reader for Gnome/Linux : (

I wonder if changing Firefox' user agent string to "Opera" would help : )

[zuchrivious]

anyone care to share the impact of Google Instant to your traffic?

[molona]

I guess it is to soon to tell but ... for the moment, the impact is nill

[SEOkyle]

The feature is useful, non-invasive and a great new direction for Google in my opinion.

Don't agree and want to turn it off?



Problem solved.

[andolasoft]

Thanks to seriocomic for sharing this valuable information.
Reilly Google instant will helps in searching.Its a great idea of helping people to get the results quicker.

[wiseseoservice]

A wide range of opinions here on Google Instant. It will certainly take some getting use to.

[nuesha]

My searching feels a lot faster. thanks guys!

[ArnoldBlack]

I can't get google instant on google.co.uk but can on google usa, why is that ?

[ChiefLee]

I like the new search but I generally just search google through my toolbar. So why it is a neat idea. It isn't revolutionary enough to make me change my searching habits.

Haven't seen any changes in traffic since Google Instant went live. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on it and see if any changes occur.

[dagaul101]

I personally think Google Instant is still buggy, have noticed fewer search results with it on, than without

[wallarookiller]

I type so fast I don't even notice it. I know that other normal users don't but when I do slow it down it is a bit distracting. BUT it may help people get more traffic for long tail search terms.

[cheesedude]

Will people change their keyword phrase because Google instant suggests a similar phrase as soon as you typed in the first few words? If more people do that, popular keyword phrase will become more popular, which means the decreasing importance of 'long tail' keywords. This will make life more difficult for small websites.

100% agreed. Everyone has their own style of searching. The suggestions for search phrases and certainly "google instant" (which is crap) are going to supplant individual searches leaving less unique search phrases and thus less traffic for everyone except the currently highly ranked sites. This is not disputable.

Factor in Google Caffeine killing traffic for long tail phrases (such as I was relying on for a site) and it is going to be the death knell for many sites.

Before it was type your search phrase, hit enter, then view and evaluate the results. All this is going to do is discourage people even further from looking beyond the first page of results. Some people will erroneously believe there is no reason to look beyond the first page. Others will be distracted by the constantly updating results with every letter typed (only the top 4 show in with my monitor resolution setting).

On one site before that stupid "google instant" started I was getting about 200 visitors per day from Google. Now I am averaging about 35 visitors.

All I have to say is I hope you Google lovers out there who believe Google can do no wrong see your traffic crash to next to nothing. You deserve it.

[cheesedude]

Google Instant isn't necesarily faster for an individual search (although it can save typing time by autocompleting your search query) but what it allows you to do is make multiple searches whilst doing an individual search. Instead of typing something, getting some results, deciding that it's not what you wanted and repeating the process, you can look at suggested results AS you type and maybe either find what you were looking for before having to complete typing it or find an alternitive that satisifies your requirements better then the original search would have.

Except for the fact that all of the results don't appear in the browser window and the searcher may actually find what he's looking on page 2, but will no longer find it at all because Google has supplanted his natural search with suggestions of their own.

It's also great if you're not sure what you're looking for because it suggests words and phrase that you might not have considered or would have taken longer to get to otherwise.

That much is true. If you don't know what you are looking for, it can be beneficial. Otherwise, it is just steering people away from what they were looking for.

Overall for all types of search it's faster by miles.

No, it is not.

[Sega]

I can't get google instant on google.co.uk but can on google usa, why is that ?

I have Google UK and it works fine for me. You have to be registered though to Google and have a Google Account, and your instant will work automatically.

Whilst in the UK and struggle to access the Google US site, so I am not sure how you gained access to the US site, but if you know please let me know. It's something I have been trying to do for ages. It seems to redirect me to the UK version from the .com version, and even from the .us version.

[cheesedude]

The feature is useful, non-invasive and a great new direction for Google in my opinion.

Hey, nice example. You typed in 6 of 9 letters in "Sitepoint" and it returned Sitepoint in the first result. Good job.

Let's look at what happens as you type in the word "sitepoint":



Even before you can type the "p" in "Sitepoint" Google is trying to steer people to one of its own properties!

As you can clearly see in this case, Google "instant" is of absolutely no benefit. Most people who search for "sitepoint" are not going to be interested in anything about the "Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service".

Not only that, but of the 5 results visible in my browser window, 2 of the 5 (40&#37 are trying to steer me to Google's own properties.

If this doesn't prove how stupid and useless Google instant is, well, there is no convincing you.

Don't agree and want to turn it off?

Problem solved.

As it is on by default, most people will not turn it off. Not any more than people would turn it on if it was off by default. That is why it is on by default!

[Sega]

As it is on by default, most people will not turn it off. Not any more than people would turn it on if it was off by default. That is why it is on by default!

I kind of have to agree. People don't normally go out of their way to turn something on or off. But I don't agree with you stating that it tries to steer Google to it's own properties.

I types in sitepoint, and on each character types it returned inbiased results based on what people want. For instance 's' came with 'skype', 'si' came with 'sign in', which returns live.com - Microsoft's, and it goes on.

I don't think Google is trying to encourage it's own results first. You have to understand Google is huge, so naturally it will be high up in the search engines.

Having said that, I honestly feel that Google did not pervert this feature, and I am fairly adamant that if another search engine incorporated this feature they would feel the need to sell their products.

Off Topic:


What would an Apple Search Engine be like? I would dread to think!

[Stomme poes]

The suggestions for search phrases and certainly "google instant" (which is crap) are going to supplant individual searches leaving less unique search phrases and thus less traffic for everyone except the currently highly ranked sites. This is not disputable.

It's not disputable?? Uh, if actual user testing data shows this to be untrue, then it's certainly disputable.

All this is going to do is discourage people even further from looking beyond the first page of results.

Instant may make this behaviour worse, but currently everyone in my office who I've asked only looks at the first page currently anyway. Without Instant. It may reinforce behaviour, but it's not the cause.

Whilst in the UK and struggle to access the Google US site, so I am not sure how you gained access to the US site, but if you know please let me know. It's something I have been trying to do for ages.

In the Netherlands I used to be able to type in google.us and get the US site. Lately they've reinforced their geo-location crap and now even google.us is redirected to google.nl (which has inferior results for HTML/CSS/Javascript searches). Now I have to choose the "search google in English" link, which you likely don't have.
Strangely enough, I can type in google.co.uk and get that one without redirection.

I suggest if google is always redirecting you, to get some anti-redirect software (there are some plugins out there in the security section that can block and selectively allow redirects for geo, tinyURL and forums. (Sitepoint's redirect when I log in is blocked by NoScript, but it doesn't block the internal Google one... but I've seen other plugins, and likely Opera can stop redirects itself)).

As it is on by default, most people will not turn it off. Not any more than people would turn it on if it was off by default. That is why it is on by default!

Yup. Users are lazy. There's already a How-To discussion on the orca mailing list on how to turn off Instant until they can figure out how to make it usable for orca users. If it were no problem, there wouldn't have to be how-to's.

BTW if anyone else is thinking of posting more screenshots, pls do it as cheesedude did and scale it down a bit. I can deal with scrollbars but grabbing it to read individual lines in someone's post is annoying... try to keep them as small as reasonably possible.
Clean up with a sharpen tool in your image editor if necessary.

[Sega]

Strangely enough, I can type in google.co.uk and get that one without redirection.

With great power comes great responsibility. Maybe there is some plan going on. Instead of neutralizing the world, were everybody can see the same thing, they seem to be viewing us in regions.

It kind of makes you think about net-neutrality a bit here. Almost like they're gearing people to do a certain thing.

You have to admit, the Netherlands is part of the European Union, and is supposedly part of a political union, and almost acting like one big country between all European States, were we can freely travel and live between EU countries.

It makes you think a bit though, why did Google not transfer you to the US version, but the UK? Why are they forcing you to see the UK version? I hope my results are of the worldwide web, and not it's UK/EU version of the world-wide web.

I suggest if google is always redirecting you, to get some anti-redirect software

That's a bit harsh, look at the trouble I have to go to to see the web as the web. If I type Google.us it's because I was to see Google.us.

[Stomme poes]

With great power comes great responsibility. Maybe there is some plan going on. Instead of neutralizing the world, were everybody can see the same thing, they seem to be viewing us in regions.

It kind of makes you think about net-neutrality a bit here. Almost like they're gearing people to do a certain thing.

Google has stated they want results to be more local. To the point that, if you're in Rotterdam and are searching for something like shoe shops, you'd get results for shops that sell shoes in Rotterdam and close by.

I think it should be an option (search local) as most of the time I don't want local. How dare they assume I do??

It makes you think a bit though, why did Google not transfer you to the US version, but the UK? Why are they forcing you to see the UK version? I hope my results are of the worldwide web, and not it's UK/EU version of the world-wide web.

huh?

No, if I type in "google.com" I get sent to "google.nl". It used to be that if I typed "google.us" I'd get to "google.com" which was perfect.
Today if I type in "google.us" I still get redirected to "google.nl" now, so I have to click a link they have on the Dutch google site "search google in English" to get to "google.com".

However I was noticing that if I type in "google.co.uk" I just get that site, no redirects. Same goes for any other subdomain: I don't get redirected if I type in google.is (I do that a lot accidentally) or google.cn (for the lawlz).

Unless you meant, why I go to US google.com if I choose "search in English". I dunno why, but it's an American company so I guess they can. I'm just still kinda pissed that I can't just type "google.us" and not get redirected back to google.nl. What, my url choice wasn't clear enough?
And I clear cookies on every browser shutdown, and apparently they keep track of your choice with cookies, so I have to reset it every time. Still worth it to always dump all cookies though.

If I type Google.us it's because I was to see Google.us.

Exactly, which is why it's come down to the point where we have to have plugins in our browsers to stop geo-location-based redirects. Only reason I don't have a plugin against Google at this point is because my default language isn't English, so I get the choice to click a link to google.com. But you don't, so I suggest you have no choice but to take matters into your own hands and stop Google from screwing with your browser.

[viewcaster]

Block scripts from the domain google.com

Well I don't know... it actually has a link right next to the search box that says "Instant is on" or "Instant is off" that allows you to quickly toggle.

I understand when someone (read MS) comes out with a new technology and shoves it down your throat, but here I think G has just given another option to display search results.

[Sega]

Google has stated they want results to be more local. To the point that, if you're in Rotterdam and are searching for something like shoe shops, you'd get results for shops that sell shoes in Rotterdam and close by.

So this would mean you get different results based on your geographic location. I think YouTube is doing something similar, with their add programme. I don't really agree with this, to some degree it's useful, but in other respects I might want to see what a US person sees on his search engine.

There should ideally be an option to turn this off. This cannot be a good thing. Eventually we will have different results and everything.

I don't think people who want to learn XHTML and CSS need to be directed to a local source, same goes for cooking recepies. You might be able to get away with it for businesses, but there is times one might be working for a web design company abroad, and he might be search engine optimizing a site from abroad.

How is he suppose to see what's going on if Google is not being honest and transparent to what his targetted audience will see?

But you don't, so I suggest you have no choice but to take matters into your own hands and stop Google from screwing with your browser.

I will, they should not have assumed this.

To sum things up, people from different countries will get default redirects, different content (which Google believes is more relavent) with no option to turn this kind of search off unless you use a VPN or something. Eventually we will all be on a different internet on this planet, something which contradicts the whole purpose of the internet. Sounds wrong.