Google just unveiled Google Instant, where the search engine adjusts results in real time as the user types in the query. Google claims that Instant Search leads to 2-5 seconds of time savings per query. This is the logical extension to Google’s auto complete/suggestions feature where the user gets suggestions for completing the query as the query is typed. However, for the first time both organic and paid search advertisements update real time as the query is being typed. For instance: typing “w” returns results for weather, when “a” is added to make it “wa” , Walmart results are returned. From an advertiser’s viewpoint this is a significant change that will need new strategies for both Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I shall list a few below:
(1) More control to Google: Google now controls the popularity of words more than ever before. With auto complete surfers were predisposed to complete queries on Google recommended terms. Now, with Google returning search results real time, one is even more predisposed to click on both organic and paid search ads the Google recommends. True, the suggestions are supposed to be based on what surfers are predisposed to type probabilistically, but Google’s suggestions and results only increase the bias !
(2)
More impressions reported: Google reports that it will count any result displayed for 3 seconds as an impression. Surely, slow typists will record multiple impressions. This will increase reported impressions and hence lower Click Through Rates (CTR) from Google.
(3)
Traffic Shifts: There could be big traffic shifts among paid ads. Consider this example:
When I type “hotels” in Google currently, I see the following results
When I type the same with Instant Search turned on, I get:
Google is showing me ads for hotels near Disneyland. This will increase the impression volume of “hotels near Disneyland” keyword and reduce that of “hotels”.
(4)
Quality Score implications: I have noticed in my tests that many times, Google prefers showing brand over generic keywords. When I typed tr, Google showed ads for “Travelocity”. Given that travel is far more popular than Travelocity (based off Google’s own Trends data) we should expect the impression volume for Travelocity to shoot up. This would drop the Click Through Rates of “Travelocity” and could impact its quality score adversely. Our research has shown that CTR explains about 90% of Google’s QS formula. Hence, to prevent advertisers like Travelocity from suffering with higher CPCs, Google would have to adjust its quality score formula to account for the effects of the instantaneous mapping.
(5)
The Brand Bias: Here is what I got when I typed “a”
The first four results are all brands. Only the fifth result is “a”. Based on Google is saying “a” should be far less popular than Amazon. Lets have a look at Google Trends results:
Amazon is blue and a is red. Amazon is only 8% of “a”’s traffic !
Clearly there is some ordering bias in instant search here. My empirical tests with other letters (try x and z for instance) returned results with a similar brand bias.
(6)
Your Brand Name Matters: Let us take my Travelocity example. If I were another competing OTA like Priceline, I would expect significant traffic from the “travel” keyword. However, now with Google’s Instant suggestions potential Priceline traffic could be diverted to Travelocity. Your brand name matters ! The open question is which brands would come on top ? Brands with unique names like Cisco would still get targeted traffic as you need to type “Cis” to get Cisco specific ads while brands like “travelocity” will get a lot of untargeted but high volume traffic from words like travel. Will all this additional traffic convert ? Unlikely. So, is all this additional traffic welcome ? It remains to be seen. On the flip side, I have to believe that Priceline will be unhappy about them not being able to compete on a level playing field for the "travel" keyword.
(7)
For SEO, here is what Jason Cooper our Director of SEO has to say:" In some ways it reinforces the emphasis on head terms, the holy grail of keywords that companies spend years and many thousands of dollars going after because the fewer characters that you enter in the search box, the more likely you are to see search results for a head term. It also makes being in the top 5 more critical than ever since those are the positions most likely to be above the fold in the search suggestions. In terms of actionable strategy, SEOs need to look at the keywords that drive the most natural traffic to their site, and know what suggestions are made at
every keystroke leading up to that keyword to see if there is an opportunity earlier on the process to get ranked. "
In the last two years, Google has been “optimizing” their query
inventory by displaying ads when they didn’t show ads before. One could
view this as a “spatial” optimization of ad inventory i.e. showing ads
where there were white spaces before. The latest innovation is a
“temporal” optimization i.e. showing ads during the time it takes to
type your query. And as Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Product and User Experience said, this could be a game changer.
My experiments with Instant Search indicate that the suggestions have a definite commercial bias; branded words are preferred over generic terms despite Google’s own Trends data showing much lower traffic on the branded words. Further, Instant Search could affect impression volumes as well as CTRs on many terms.
In the coming weeks, I expect to see higher impression volumes on branded terms and traffic pattern shifts among unbranded ones. Google will also have to adjust its Quality Score formula to account for the impression shifts among keywords, specially branded ones to enable advertisers maintain their ROI. As with any significant change, there will be winners and losers. However, who wins and loses remains to be seen.
Dr. Siddharth Shah
Director, Business Analytics
