Last week (8 Sept), Google rolled out Google Instant. It introduces a new way of searching. Instead of entering a full search term and hitting the 'search' (or 'I feel lucky') button to find results for your query, Google instant will do two things while you type.
- Google will use auto-suggest to 'guess' what you are typing, starting from the first letter you type. It shows its best guess as grey text in the search box, and just hitting [tab] will accept that text. It also still shows other suggestions underneath the search box, as it used to do.
- Google will start showing search results based on the first suggested term (!). This means that, while you type, the search results are being refreshed. Google claims these changes can save 2 to 5 seconds per search query.
So, how does this new functionality impact the user? And, does this affect the businesses that are dependent on being found through Google?
Implications for the user
Google is known for testing their new functionalities extensively, before letting it out into the wild. So their user experience designers will have tested this thoroughly, both internally and externally. And this means that Google is confident this will help their users.
Faster searches?
Google claims that Google Instant could save 2 to 5 seconds per search query. In my opinion, this depends very heavily on the search terms that are being used when typing the query. For example, try looking for 'Benefits of Google Instant'. These are the results that show up while you type:
- B - Best Buy - Best buy, store locations, etc
- Ben - Bentley - Bentley motors, Bentley systems, Bentley university
- Benefits - Benefits - All kinds of tax- and income-related websites
- Benefits of - Benefits of yoga - Health sites
- Benefits of go - Benefits of going green - Health sites
- Benefits of google - Benefits of google - Google search, jobs, benefits of google voice, etc
- Benefits of google instant - Benefits of google instant - the results we wanted.
During this time, I am being distracted (and amused) by the search results that show up. I actually start scanning these results before continuing to type the rest of my query. In the end, I think I lost between 10 and 20 seconds, rather than winning 2 to 5 seconds.
Of course, if you start your query with more relevant search terms, the suggested terms will be more relevant, and so will the results that are showing up. More experienced users will therefore benefit more from this time-saving innovation than 'normal' users.
Better results?
When search results are presented while you are typing, users may be inclined to select one of those results before they actually finish typing their full query. This means that they may be overlooking better results that they would have found using the old interface. A possible effect of this is that the long tail will be made significantly shorter. If users are not satisfied by these results, they will have to revisit the results page and continue searching.
Implications for businesses
Long tail content
As mentioned above, Google Instant may have some effect on the long tail. Businesses that rely on Google being able to get customers to them for long tail content may be impacted by this new technique. This is especially true for 'accidental' visitors. The determined customer looking for a very specific piece on long tail content will still be able to find the content, and will possibly get there a little faster because of their use of the correct keywords.
Paid searches
Every time a user types one or two characters, the page will refresh, showing new results. Because many more result pages are being served to a user, this means more impressions of paid results. But this also means that overall, the click-through rates go down considerably. This may not be a bad thing, but is important to be aware of.
Another consequence of this new interaction is that keyword targeting may be more effective on shorter combinations of keywords. These so-called 'head terms' will become more expensive to target due to increased competition. This means business might be looking at an considerable increase in online advertising cost.
Our preliminary verdict
We think this new technique will initially NOT benefit all users. There is a lot of distraction while typing your search query and users will have to be aware that more relevant results will only show up when they complete their query.
On the other hand, Google Instant will hopefully help them build better queries, once they get used to this new interaction paradigm. You can learn while you type, rather than hitting the search button and modifying your query a number of times.
The interaction pattern isn't new (check out arledia.be), but since Google is a big influencer on the internet, this interaction pattern will soon be followed by many. And it already has been followed (a good collection of instant-search examples). So we'd better get used to it and learn to use it to our advantage.