Google Instant - changing results?

Hasn't this been around for a while? You mean the prompts you get in a drop down box as you type in a google query?

Must admit, hadn't really given it much thought, but do click on them if I see the phrase I was in the middle of typing.

Theres no date on that google instant page, so when did/is this happening?

No, it's more than that.
It's similar but when you're in the search page (& you may have to be logged in) instead of it just suggesting/prompting as you type it also changes the search results in real time.

Seems like it's being rolled out this week (bit more details on BBC News).

It's already working for me and from a search perspective I like it but I have concerns for those businesses that heavily rely on search results and SEO as I reckon it could impact them. There again it may work in favour for some and against on others....

hmm, I saw it being demo's on the news this morning, and I see what you mean. Still getting the old style from where I am, so will have to wait and see.

Bloody Google, always nerve racking when they have another of their "great" ideas.

Remember a big update they did back in 2008, we went from 20,000 daily visitors to 10,000 overnight

That hurt

Oh well, time will tell, no doubt we will all be watching our analytics closely!

I only got the back of the story on Breakfast News this morning so thanks for posting up the link - it's reminded me to read what it's all about!

And having read it - I've got belly wobbles

But....I can't see Google doing anything to damage their advertising revenue stream (Adwords). As for SEO, I think this is definitely a waiting game until it's rolled out fully.

I am not seeing the instant changes at the mo either Steve

mmmm - I'm seeing very strange things with Google result listings today

When I am typing in a search term the number of potential results is massive!
key term "Online web marketing" for example is now displaying 160million potential results. I know for fact this key-phrase didn't return that sort of results volume.

When I type in my company name "MagnifyB" I get 26,600 results!

Now, I initially got very excited ( ) as normally it's around the 1500 and 90-95% of these are me, the other 10% are Magnify B (note the space) which is something to do with a camera lens in China!! Unfortunately, I haven't suddenly got 26k+ indexed mentions. The results displayed to me are very random. Some pages don't load, some pages have no mention of a magnify anything and other have the word magnify followed by a word like button, ball, base etc.

I am hoping this is a mere glitch and Google are going to rectify these results volumes...... if not I think I am going to get very, very drunk for a whole month and hide under the duvet!

Although I make light of this, it potentially could be very serious for all of us!

I have been having a good play on instant this morning and have a concern regarding AdWords advertising and how this affects impression count and therefore CTR.

I did a little test ( though have no answer ) using the search term online marketing. And typed as below

on.....................this displays online gaming adverts
online.................continues with the online games adverts
online m..............this displays online movie adverts
online ma............this displays online maths adverts
online mar...........this is now displaying online marketing adverts

Now, if I was one of the companies with an online game, online movie or online maths advert, my advert has been shown, so technically it is an impression. None of the gaming, maths or movie adverts are relevant to what I was actually looking for therefore I am not going to click on them.

So, how does this affect the CTR of the games, movie and maths adverts???? As CTR is a big factor is calculating Quality Score, if the impression IS counted, the likely outcome will be a higher CPC.

Wondering what anyone else thinks as I can be over analytical at times

This is a great discussion. I'm relatively new to SEO so am starting to put more research into it all the time.

With reference to online marketing search, I guess google are counting on the users using our short circuited google brains, will have such short term concentration on the task at decisively click the advertisement hand.

Interesting article on BBC about the Google brain!

(As a new user I can't link to the site) How good software makes us stupid BBC News.

Kate
Marketing and Comms
Macnamara.it

Well had a quick look at our conversions, and theres no obvious impact at the moment, and our organic traffic is down by 1.5% on the previous week, which could be normal flux, so no panic alarms sounding just yet...

But its early days!

Good to see no impact Steve..

Interesting article on Search Engine Watch Google Instant - 10 Things Marketing Teams Need to Know

On the basis that I expect the majority of people do searches when not signed in the impact will be limited..