Google Instant – Live updating search result page

This new interface updates as a user types in the search query. Not only will the regular search results update as a user types in letters in the search field, but elements from Universal Search (maps, news, shopping, etc) as well as AdWords ads will also update in real time. This results in a user seeing a much larger set of search results as the query is being typed in and refined. In addition, the query suggestions (Google Suggest) play a more central role in discovering possible queries and relevant websites.

Some advantages of Google Instant are:

• Searching is now much faster which results in people performing a higher number of searches and in their viewing more potential listings in their search for information.
• Since users are shown a much larger set of search results, there is a much higher chance of your pages being displayed in the SERPs.
• Users can now easier modify their query which results in more specific queries which will drive relevant traffic to your website.

Google preparing for Instant Search

Looking back at the past months you can follow the steps Google has taken towards this major release:

1. May – Google Caffeine: This was advertised as the new infrastructure which would allow Google to offer new and faster services in the future. It’s however assumed that Caffeine went live long before the official announcement in June.
2. May -May Day update: Google changed the way it handled long tail queries (queries where there is a smaller set of results available). This resulted in many large sites with high domain trust losing traffic to smaller sites with more specific content.
3. August – Handling navigational queries: With this change Google started to show more results from the same domain for navigational queries. For instance if you search for a brand name (e.g. ‘sony’), there is now a higher chance that several more pages from the official domain are listed in the top 10.

Impact of Google Instant Search on SEO

In general this new feature won’t change the basic rules of SEO since Google’s algorithms will continue evaluating webpages in the same way as before. Webmasters should hence continue focusing on their content, traffic, and conversions. What changes however is the way users will go about finding information, how they interact with search results as they learn to use more specific search queries, and how they review the results before making a choice.

• CTR  is the new ranking. The click-through rate for organic listings becomes more important than pure rankings since users will see many more search results in each session.
• Creating relevant content which better targets specific queries will drive more traffic as users learn to perform better searches.
• Experimenting with page titles and snippets and tracking the changes in CTR becomes even more important.
• Universal Search listings (images, video thumbnails, maps, shopping, etc) will attract more clicks since dense graphic elements will draw more attention in a fast updating interface.
• The traditional Golden Triangle theory regarding the users’ eye movements on search result pages is no longer true. Earlier you performed a search, sat back and studied the results and the ads before either clicking on a listing, or modifying your query. This will now be substantially different as the users’ eyes will wander up and down between the query field, listings, Universal Search entries, and AdWords ads. I’m looking forward to the first eye tracking study for the new search page.
• Searches with short queries will fall considerably since people usually come to Google with a very specific goal in mind. The now interactive search result page allows users to dig deeper into a subject until they’ve found a reasonable set of search results which better fits their intent.

For those proclaiming the death of SEO, I would actually argue the opposite.

This is definitely a game changer but it does not change the way serious SEOs have worked for a long period of time. That includes focusing on important KPIs other than rankings. Instant Search is however a massive headache for those who still treat SEO as a magic formula and have been focusing on optimizing for mere nuances in Google’s search algorithm. They will continue wasting their time focusing on the petty details in the algorithms instead of working on improving the overall value of the sites they are promoting.

All in all, no matter what some people wrongly proclaim, SEO is certainly not dead – it just got more interesting.

This post is cross posted in Swedish to Search Integration blog: Google Instant och dess påverkan på SEO

In short, Google pays out 68% for AdSense for Content (AFC) ads, and 51% for AdSense for Search (AFS) ads. Quote from the post:

AdSense for content publishers, who make up the vast majority of our AdSense publishers, earn a 68% revenue share worldwide. This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites. [...] Since launching AdSense for content in 2003, this revenue share has never changed.

We pay our AdSense for search partners a 51% revenue share, worldwide, for the search ads that appear through their implementations. [...] The AdSense for search revenue share has remained the same since 2005, when we increased it.

This announcement is a welcomed news by websites monetizing their content with Google AdSense; this will in addition end many speculations around the subject.

Read the entire post here: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/05/adsense-revenue-share.html

The principles of the Social Search feature are very simple. As a user I can create a Google Profile and link it with my various public accounts on for instance Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. Google then uses this information, plus other clues such as my Gmail contacts or blogs in my Google Reader, to generate a social graph of my direct connections, friends of friends and so on. Next time I perform a search, the search algorithms look through the public content published in my social graph to see if there is something relevant available.

Here is an example of how it can look like: when I for instance search for [301 redirect], I get two very relevant results from my social circle blended with other results. One is an excellent blogpost from my friend Jesper Åström about how to implement a .htaccess 301 redirect, and a second blogpost from my former colleague at Google John Muller about 301 redirection issues on Twitter.

So how did Google found these two results? That’s simply because I have linked my Twitter profile from my public Google Profile. Google’s algorithms can then see that I’m following both of these guys on Twitter, and that both have a link to their blogs in their Twitter profiles. The type of content which might pop up in Social Search are for instance blogposts, tweets and status updates on other microblogging platforms, reviews, public Picasa or Flickr images,  and other activity from your friends on places which are linked to via their profiles.

To start using Google Social Search, you need to first create your own Google Profile and add links to your public profile on Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc. Google’s algorithms will then use these links to outline your relationship graph and to identify relevant content from your online neighbourhood next time you make a search.

If you are already using this feature, head over to this page to get an overview of your current social circle as Google sees it. More details about Social Search here.

(Photo credit: laurelpapworth.com, personalizemedia.com)

1- Google and a number of other organizations have lately been a target for a sophisticated cyber attack on its corporate infrastructure originating in China
2- Evidence that the attackers’ main object have been to gain access to Gmail accounts of human rights activists inside China
3- Evidence that Gmail accounts of a large number of human rights activists in U.S., Europe and China has been regularly accessed by third parties. This has been achieved through using illegitimate methods such as phishing attacks and malware installed on user’s computer.

Google declares:

“We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.“

Now, stop for a second and think about which other public company would pull out of the most lucrative market in the world, for a good cause? To me, it looks like Google continues to live up to its “Do No Evil” mantra. I really hope more companies will follow suit.

The entire post can be found here.

The latest assault comes from Germany’s minister of justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP) who in the Spiegel magazine (poor translation here) threatens with legislative actions unless Google is rethinking its what she calls “gigantomania”. She criticizes Google for its general arrogance against user privacy, lack of transparency, and megalomania. Just as in any Google bashing article, she also mentions Google Book Search which has recently been harshly criticized by Angela Merkel’s government. In a speech before the opening of the last Frankfurt Book Fair Merkel said her government opposes Google’s endeavour to create an online library due to the “considerable dangers” for copyright protection online.

Germany has a dark history of breeches in citizens’ privacy and still to this day there are new revelations about the GDR’s repulsive treatment of its own citizens. Thus, this suspicious view of Google the Giant might not come as a surprise. One can only hope though that there are enough politicians and advisors in the current government who understand and can explain new technology to their older peers. The way I see it, Google with its huge worldwide reach and innovative products has undeservedly become a convenient target for people’s legitimate fears to lose their privacy in the vast world wide web.

To answer the question if the German government dislikes Google, my answer is clearly No! Instead, I believe the lawmakers’ attacks are caused by pressure from understandably concerned citizens, but even worse, from slow moving industries, mainly in publishing and news, who have held on to their old ways and refused to adapt to the digital era. They are now failing to deliver on their outdated business models and governments are sadly once again intervening to save failing industries to the detriment of the users.