Google announces Google Instant AJAX Serps - Live Now!

[imbckagn]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4198306.htm [webmasterworld.com] by brett_tabke - 11:42 am on Sep 8, 2010 (cst -5)

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I also have the the new Ajax results when I am logged out. It says the phrase below in a blue box when I type.

Welcome to Google Instant
Feelings of euphoria and weightlessness are normal. Don't be alarmed learn more.
This is the learn more link [google.com...]

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.

[cien]

Youtube is down. Tried to view the video and it shows this:

500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
If you see them, show them this information:

HiyxUyJjtmCmCnLuEQmyaBCK-aacWLK0eL72Wgl8aP9qc0MRxTut6SYp35I4
UOCYVIplTfohcwRwf9MO-9JctzXLqcsZtCD4nMAtQHoZb1Zi5eBFM86tso28
tEDl09O9cv_a1bTCeFJoM06HiHKjr1vZo9etV0tmHXBQWimsSObxvS2yXmMT
ideQ4XAmH-C7akQ0D_4EOGOiROBJD5LR1I1wme-t2n1cXiG5yeyk1bRVZWDT

[drall]

More strength to my point earlier this week.

Google has totally lost the plot. Wonder why Bings market share keeps growing Google? Cause of stuff like this.

Bring back my old pre Bing interface.
Bring back the serps where I could actually find what I was looking for instead of what you think I am looking for.
Bring back pages filled with results from multiple sites instead of pages filled with ads, youtube videos and 8 results from one site.
Bring back the search engine that rewarded webmasters who FOLLOW your guidelines.
Bring back my adsense rep
Bring back fast loading ads (pre doubleclick)

Anyone at the plex ever heard of "if it aint broke dont fix it?"

[mrguy]

Personally I think it's distracting, but we'll all get used to it and wonder how we managed without it.

Sorry, I don't use Google so I won't be getting used to anything from Google any time soon.

[Web_speed]

Anyone at the plex ever heard of "if it aint broke dont fix it?"

In-order to justify their exuberant salaries, they must fix things all day long. It is that simple.

Add to that their clear agenda of "killing SEO" and their you have it. More and more innovations specifically designed to increase businesses spending on AdWords, local search and what else have you.

Evil, short sighted plan....here comes that "$lipery $lop" we all dreaded. Make it harder for average Joe to find information and he/she will click more ads.

[edited by: Web_speed at 1:07 am (utc) on Sep 9, 2010]

[cien]

LOL @ mrguy. You tell us how you feel about ole G.! lol. I think Google needs to slow down a bit and quit fixing what ain't broken. Most people are creatures of habit and don't like all this instability. I had never seen the web so full of anti-google comments, never before. Google is like the ice cream trucks around here. You can't catch them so I have to take my daughter to ole Safeway (Binghoo) to buy them creams almost every day! Slow down Google!

It would be interesting to know what Hitwise's numbers will be for Google this month.

[Whitey]

Interesting summing up from the BBC's technology correspondent here : [bbc.co.uk...] with some notes on income to it as a business and implications predicted with mobile search use later in the year . I think the truth is we need to be aligned to the future to get the most out of this.

.... and this is a very rapid set of changes.

Google is seeking to meet it's challenges to ensure search dominates into the future and i think that needs to be respected if those dependent on it are going to prosper. The game is changing.

[mhansen]

To qualify... I switched to Bing after the Caffeine update and the mountains of irrelevant results. Those crappy results STILL pollute google serps, so my test was only temporary, before I get back to the real world and forget Google exists. (Isn't that what Matt suggests anyway?)

From a user perspective, I like it, more than I hate it. It finds (relatively close) to what I was looking for, or helps me find it quicker. Google has always done that though...

From the Webmaster perpective, would it even pass Googles' OWN manual review muster? If you or I were to push all content below the fold of the visitors screen and have nothing but 90% of the visible real estate showing ads to the visitors, Google would penalize our site, and we would be called evil and misleading to our visitors.

In a 1280x720 on my HTPC, you cannot even see the first organic result! You get 5 auto-suggest phrases, along with 3 paid results in the content section, and full paid results in the right-sidebar.

Conclusion, +#*$! percent increase in adwords revenue, huge increase of PO'd webmasters around the world who lose MORE of their organic traffic into the google machine... and a public who knows no better and keeps on going like there was no difference.

Just another day...

[J_RaD]

^ so its pretty much confirmed, goog is now just a PPC engine.

[Harry]

Stupid question - please don't flame.

I've had Google prompts when searching in the search bar in Firefox for a while now, what's so different about instant search?

[walkman]

WSJ has a different take: Google will lead people to higher paying terms, increasing their $$

[online.wsj.com...]

"Google certainly has the power to guide searchers into more profitable search queries," said Kevin Lee, chief executive of search engine marketing firm Didit.com. "While eliminating the noise of people's true, personal search behavior, (Google) create(s) a herd of searchers using common queries."

Google spokesman Jim Prosser acknowledged that some head terms would appear more often with Instant Search, but he said that users would continue typing out queries if they don't quickly find what they are looking for. He added that it was too early to say how the new feature would impact keyword pricing.

[Whitey]

If you drive emphasis into the long tail , Google will expand it's revenue base. There's only so much money they can make from trophy terms. Trophy terms are dead.

Long may the life of the longtail live to coin some dramatic phrase.

However , even Jim Prosser hasn't been informed how this will play out. It's a bold move.

[super70s]

"...in related news, there's been a run on 'googlejumpsthesharkon9-08-10' domain names."

[m0thman]

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System: The following message was spliced on to this thread from: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4198949.htm [webmasterworld.com] by tedster - 10:54 pm on Sep 8, 2010 (EDT -4)

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Sorry, to the nay-sayers... what a bunch of nuibwits (instant Google it!). I think it's good. Easier to avoid stupid Wiki Pages and Facebook crud.

By the way, why do you get a blank page if you type in "#*$!"... is there none out there? ROTFL!

[AG4Life]

This thing is stupid. I've been ignoring Google's suggested search terms because they've proved very bad at predicting what I want to search for, and now I'm forced to look at the results of the top suggested term on instant. There are so many practical problems with this implementation that I just don't think Google has considered.

For example, there are these two rival sports teams that share the first word in their names, and the suggested term (and now the results that show up first on instant) is always for one team, not the other. Now, if I were a supporter of that other team, I would not be happy to see my rival's results come up first.

And we know Google displays sports scores in the search results now. So if I supported the team that came up first on instant, but I wanted to search for the second team's results (without wanting to know my own team's results, since I'm trying to watch a replay as live), then I'll either have to type really quickly, or I'll have to close my eyes while I'm typing.

Well at least most adult oriented terms are not being automatically suggested and displayed, because some very innocent searches could go very very wrong indeed otherwise. But I've already found one example where an innocent search term has led to something quite nasty showing up as the suggested search (and thus the results, and pictures, instantly) ... I work at home so it's fine, but I wonder how this would go down at an office! NSFW indeed. And yes, all these intermediary results are all recorded in your browser history too (at least on Chrome!)

[anallawalla]

How much additional data will be pumped down the net as a result of this? In Australia most of us are on volume based plans, though few would hit their limit. This is more important for mobile data plans - would this be rolled out for mobile browsers?

In Australia even when logged in the feature is intermitent.

[indyank]

Google personalised search, google suggest and now Google Instant.

Are these attempts to kill long tail?
Are these attempts to ensure that only authority sites or sites which can rank for "short keyword phrases" can live on the web?
Are these attempts to shrink the web?
Are these attempts to be a monopoly on the web together with its partner publishers?

or are these attempt to kill google?
Beware Google...Someone within your team is trying to destroy you...

[cien]

Just checked my logs and I'm getting more than usual traffic tonight. It appears to be from the instant search. Half formed keywords some appear to be...

[onepointone]

I typed a common 3 letter word 'who'. And every single result on the first page is related to some grocery chain that I never shop at or search for.

pages from their site, their twitter page, their wikipedia page, video, etc.
interesting.

[CainIV]

AFAIK tell another unfortunately useless feature. Unfortunately will affect PPC and analytics in the long run. Back to regular programming.....

[jaffstar]

If organic results are refreshed in realtime , so will adwords which could have a negative effect on their revenue.

[Web_speed]

^ so its pretty much confirmed, goog is now just a PPC engine

Yep, it is what i see too. A full on PPC engine. Top fold full of paid/sponsored and local search results. The rest is hidden away down! down! down! ...at the bottom.

Way to go GOOG! disgusting short sighted greed!

Time to notify my clients about this crap and start talking them into spending more with the other two search engines.

[Web_speed]

Heres a good article on this topic by PC magazine:

Is Google Instant Search Smarter Than Bing Type Ahead?
[pcmag.com...]

[AG4Life]

The above article says Instant only works when signed in, but how come I'm getting it while signed out (and with web history turned off). It's default to on too.

[seo99]

Google Instant has:

1. Made Adwords >> SEO
2. Killed Long Tail keywords
3. Reduced Adwords QS if your ads appear 4+ position
4. Increased Adwords CPC
5. Given more SEO headeache
6. Made Google suggestions the most important keyword tool

Please add if you have more valid points..

[vivalasvegas]

I find this new feature annoying and overwhelming. For me Google used to be about simplicity and ease of use. This is not simplicity anymore - we have the left navigation, the search suggestions, now the instant search triggering all kinds of updates happening in my browser's window independent of my will. Is it just me or this is simply too much stuff the surfer must deal with?

[projectmanuk]

Whatever good you think this may do to long tail keywords, Google Suggest already did it. The Instant is only gonna add distraction that would stop users actually finishing the long tail word.

[McMohan]

Google should have retained the bottom search bar and made it work just as before.

[UK_Web_Guy]

Does anyone know any stats of % of users who have a google account?

[mkassets]

I think this will have a negative impact on 3 or 4 words or longer searches as users will get distracted with other results by the results being showed prior.

.. attempt to kill long tail

May be and may be not. It could also work in the opposite way. Now, a user entering a 1-word query and not seeing the results he is looking for, may be tempted to add one more word, and then one more word and so on.

"widget" => "widget blue" => "widget blue store" => "widget blue store in Chicago" ....

we'll see the effect of this over time ...

[Simsi]

Gut feel is that eventually this will be defaulted to "off" and you'll have to turn it on if you want it. It's very distracting - the blurb says it speeds up search for the user...it feels like it's slowing me down LOL