It’s that time again…time to proclaim the death of SEO! Let me start by saying, as always, it’s not true.
The cause of the proclamations this time? Google Instant!
Lemme break down Google Instant for you and then we’ll talk about why it doesn’t mean the death of SEO.
Here is an overview:
It has been said that this is the closest any engine has come to reading users minds! It delivers the results as soon as you start typing!
“I think it’s a little bit of a new dawn in computing,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said during a press conference on Wednesday.
What does it mean to you? You will see evolving search results that can change -potentially even as often as you type each additional character, into the search box.
Google will predict what you want by filling out the anticipated search term in grey. Below that there will be a dropdown box where Google will offer other suggested queries.
The feature is being rolled out in the US this week and will roll out around the world later in the year. It works with most of the latest versions of popular web browsers.
By speeding up search results, Google believes it will keep its users happier and if they are happier, they hope they are more likely to search even more (which is good for Google because they get to serve ads on each query, which means potential for them to increase their revenue)
Interesting: Google expects to reduce the time that people collectively spend on its search engine by about 350 million hours annually with Google Instant!
Straight from Google:
“Benefits
Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.
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.
Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.”
Source: http://www.google.com/instant/#utm_campaign=launch&utm_medium=van&utm_source=instant
So the SEO is dead bandwagon is out in full force as a result of this new change. Any change by Google potentially changes things but it doesn’t kill SEO.
In order to be one of the sites that comes up in the Instant search your site needs to be optimized! It’s that simple.
How we optimize changes and that is a good thing. But it doesn’t mean that optimization is not important.
Ex-Googler Vanessa Fox backs up that assertion here, in her fabulous Blog Post: http://www.ninebyblue.com/blog/seo-is-dead-andor-irrelevant-with-google-instant/
Googler Matt Cutts has weighed in with: “The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time,” says Cutts. “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.”
Google clearly said that ranking stays the same with Google Instant.
We should also remember that some people will simply deactivate the feature, leaving them open to Google’s standard results.
Want to learn more and try Google Instant:
So, yes it’s interesting, yes SEO is evolving, NO SEO is not dying! 