Will Google Instant Kill The Long Tail?

I think that the impact of this will be muted by the fact that:

1) Most people are not be logged into a Google account when searching, I am guessing < 20%, despite the popularity of Gmail and other tools that require a login and often result in a persistent login.

2) Many people have a Google search bar at the top of their browser and won't see the instant results unless they do a second refinement search, if they are logged in.

-Greg

John – thanks for bringing to light the impact Google Instant might have on paid search. Couldn’t it also negatively affect quality scores? If an advertiser qualifies for more impressions but doesn’t get clicked, will Google continue to ding the account?

Personally – I’m not crazy about Instant, but maybe that’s just because it’s not what I’m used to.

vperr, I think you may be right. The paid search piece kind of takes care of itself through smart bid management. If more of the quality traffic goes to the head keywords, the value of the traffic will increase as will the bids, if more flows through to the tail the bids will shift appropriately.

In SEO it may mean if you’re not in the top 5 forget it. May be true in paid search as well.

Interesting stuff!

I think the main issue may be with SEO rather than with PPC, even if I do share the concern about need to bid on broader keywords and relative increase in cost.
I think this is the best way for google to devalue SEO results…people will not want to scroll and 80% of the results visible on a normal 1024 resolution (still the most used) will be paid results.

Guys, don’t you see this as the most astute move google could make to put even more money in their pockets??

I can’t wait to start comparing the organic traffic on our ecommerce website for those keywords where we were ranking from position 2-3 down, but I am not expecting anything good.

John, good points, but I think what will happen is a positive selection bias.

The Keyword “Las Vegas” performs poorly for hotel chains because many of the people searching are looking for “show tickets”, maps, the moving Leaving Las Vegas, flights, insurance quotes, veterinarians, whatever. If someone is looking for a hotel in Las Vegas and stops their search after typing Las V because they’ve seen a hotel ad that’s attractive, that’s likely to be a valuable click.

I think we’re going to see an increase in the value of the traffic because of the selection effect, and I think folks who weren’t looking for a hotel will keep typing until they find what they want. Fewer “bad” clicks on the head terms, more targeted clicks on the tail = win + win.

All sheer speculation, of course! We shall see.

here’s the 26 lucky ones, once you type in one key google suggests them:
amazon
best buy
craigslist
dictionary (ok this is potential)
ebay
facebook
gmail
hotmail
ikea
jet blue
kohls
lowes
mapquest
netflix
orbitz
pandora
quotes (another chance)
rei
sears
target
usps
verizon
weather
xbox
yahoo
zillow

@John Ellis I see what you are saying, but Matt McGee makes a point at the end of his article, hopefully this will teach people to start searching smarter. And really, to your comment; if people find what they are looking for on the short tail then were doing our jobs properly; getting the customer to where they need to go.

@dev3ine19 – Thanks for the comments. I am hearing others say it may not have an impact on long-tail either. I am still not convinced. Maybe users like you and I will keep searching, but I think novice users (those not visiting SearchEngineLand.com) are going to get out as quick as they can. If they see what they are looking for (as in Las Vegas Hotels), why keep looking?

We will just have to wait and see how this plays out.

@blueoceanmarketing- Matt McGee just wrote a great article on Google Instant. It includes how to disable it. You can find it here: http://searchengineland.com/google-instant-complete-users-guide-50136

You have to remember that search is intention-based. People go to search on something because they have something in mind already. Just because Instant shows them something, doesn’t mean that they will stop there and click it. In fact, I might speculate that many people will find Instant annoying.

Thoughts?

Is there a way to turn it off?

I really don’t see a huge impact to how this will effect the long tail. In all honesty it seems to just be making it easier for the user to get to search results when they don’t really know what they are looking for. For example they might start with a general idea of getting hotels in Las Vegas but seeing what comes up will eventually lead them to narrowing their search faster. It really comes down to real time editing of your query to get to exactly what you want without having to sift through pages of search results.