Google has just launched its instant search with a great buzz around it (even a promoted trend on Twitter).
People’s reactions differ, some like it, some do not, others (like Steve Rubel) predict that it will be the end of SEO. Others (like Brett Tabke in that post’s comments) argue that it “opens the door to a whole new type of optimization”. What do I make out of Google Instant?
Google Instant makes me think of “clusters” of related search terms, like those that we see in search suggestions. It’s easy to notice that once you start typing your query, suggestions come up and the results displayed are for the first suggestion. Now, these suggestions may be semantically connected or not related to each other at all – it all depends on the point of your typing during which they are displayed (first letter? first word? half of your query?). The results displayed by the instant search are those for the first suggestion.
I am not going to get into the reasons why Google displays certain suggestions in a certain order for queries – this is irrelevant for now. What’s important is paying attention to these topical clusters when optimizing your site – be it onsite or off-site. Sounds quite like and old and tried technique to me…