freejung - 6:09 pm on Oct 15, 2010 (gmt 0)

If Instant were inflating the numbers, I would expect a 10%-20% pop

I agree, and furthermore, if instant were having a dramatic effect on searcher behavior, I would have expected to see that in my search stats.

The reality is that I and many others have noted that there was a distinct _lack_ of change in search behavior as a result of instant. There were tiny fluctuations, maybe, barely beyond the range of normal variation, but nothing to write home about.

I don't think instant was the game-changer for end users that we thought it would be. I think that for the most the only real difference is that now they sometimes stop typing when the prediction matches what they were going to type anyway. That would have little effect on either our stats or Comscore's.