Google Instant is Google’s new approach to displaying search results. As a user types in a search term, five common search terms are listed directly below the search box. They change with each character, and are on the same background as the search box, so they invade the cognitive space that previously was populated with the user’s specific search target. Below the list of search term alternates, a short list of sponsored links is followed by links related to the search term as it currently appears in the search box.
As I typed in a number of product types, it struck me that the top retailers who previously needed to fight for visual relevance in the search results that took some mental labor to scan, are now appearing before the user’s thought has been completely entered. I haven’t had a chance to test this with retail customers, but I expect that a significant amount of traffic will be diverted from the user’s original consideration set of retailers, to the ones who are very prominently displayed in their immediate perception zone as they type. The big will get bigger, and the small will have to fight for relevance.
Many of the searches I did only listed two retailers and 3 more generic terms. This means that retailers not only need to fight for space on page 1 of search results, but falling into position 2, 3, 4, or 5 in Google Instant will have a direct impact on sales. Obviously the algorithm will be as mysterious as previous search algorithms, i.e. difficult to crack, but it is very simple to see how this plays out in any particular category of merchandise. Number 1 or 2, you’re probably okay, but 3, 4, or 5 may drop down below the tip of the tip of the iceberg of awareness into the sea of millions of results.
