Tag Archives: Google Instant
Google Instant expands international reach to 19 domains
Three weeks after its initial debut, Google Instant is now available in 19 of Google’s 182 domains. Interesting tidbit: Google included Italy in its first roll-out group, but Google Instant is not yet available for the tiny city state of San Marino, which also uses Italian.
Not everyone sees Google Instant
Google Instant is only available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8 browsers – users with Internet Explorer 6 and 7 browsers won’t see instant. Users must be logged in to a Google service, such as Google Analytics, Gmail or Google Docs, to use Google Instant. The one exception is for searches performed on Google.com – there everyone gets access to Google Instant. Also keep in mind that users searching via a browser toolbar won’t see Google Instant until they refine their search in a returned results page.
Google Instant Changes Little – and Some SEO Considerations using the Italian ABCs
So now that most of the uninformed hype surrounding Google Instant has been written, let’s take a hard look at what Google Instant really means for most companies and organizations.
Google Instant is an interface change
First of all, it is important to understand what Google Instant is and what it is not. Google Instant is a user interface change, it changes the way Google presents search results to Google users.
How Google Instant works
As the user types a query, Google refreshes the displayed search results which, according to Google, best respond to the query typed so far or what Google predicts the query will be based on past queries.
Google Autocomplete, née Google Suggest, the Precursor of Google Instant
With all the brouhaha over the premiere of Google Instant, its easy to over look the fact that Google Instant isn’t really very new. In 2004 Google Labs launched a new tool called Google Suggest. Google suggest provided a list of potential search keyword phrases based on the keystrokes a user typed. Initially Google Suggest also displayed the estimated number of results for a given keyword phrase. Google Suggest was developed by Google engineer Kevin Gibbs in Google’s famous 20% time.
Google Suggest in Action. Note the result counts.
Google adds search results to the search box
Over time Google added functionality to Google suggest, providing links, weather information and even ads within the Google suggest powered search box. With Google Instant, Google has taken the next logical step of providing suggested results under the search box rather than in it. Google Instant needs to be seen as an evolution of Google suggest. Indeed, many of the limits of Google Instant, such as supplying local geographic targeted results for US metro areas only, are really Google Suggest limits.
Google Suggest with Weather and search buttons in Search Box
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