Google Instant Technical Observations for SEO

Google Instant is the latest Google innovation to have an effect on both users and SEO. But what kind of effect, exactly? This article will make some technical observations of Google Instant in action, and examine the short- and long-term implications for SEO (with a focus on keywords).

You can learn more about how Google Instant works directly from Google; we've also touched some on how it changes the SEO game here on SEO Chat before.

Okay, let’s go to the most important question to be answered: “How does Google Instant affect SEO and its users?”

The answer to this question is fundamental to the evolution of SEO, and it’s important that practitioners adapt to this change in order to survive and do well at the SEO game.

To answer this question as realistically as possible, I've conducted a test using real world examples on Google to search for information.

Scenarios Where Google Instant is Not Available

As of the time this tutorial was written, not all searches done with Google could be served via Google instant. There are some limitations, which I've elaborated below.

First, there are specific command search operators which are not supported by Google Instant. For example, consider the following search query:

site:www.seochat.com

Google does not serve that query using Google Instant, which means you'll have to manually click the search button.

Sample screen shot:

Other search operators which are not supported by Google Instant include:

* site:
* cache:
* filetype:
* link:
* related:

Google remains mum as to why those queries are not supported by Google Instant. Possible reasons could include controlling automated searches and queries to their index by spammers. Such searches are against Google's terms of service. The operators which are not supported are commonly used by marketers and SEOs to gather more information about a certain website.

However, the good news is that there are still lots of operators which are supported by Google Instant. These operators include are the following:

* allinanchor:
* allintext:
* allintitle:
* allinurl:
* inanchor:
* inurl:
* intitle:

Second, slow Internet connections can cause issues for Google Instant. Specifically, when your connection appears slow to Google, the search engine automatically turns off Google Instant. However, if Google has previously turned off the service and you are pretty confident that your connection is now fast, you can switch on Google Instant by means of the relevant control beside the search button.

Third, Google Instant does not work in some browsers. Of the top five Internet browsers according to Wikipedia:

Only the top three browsers as of the time this article was written are supported by Google Instant (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome). The two other browsers are not yet supported (Safari and Opera in Windows).

It is possible that in the near future, Google Instant will be available to most common browsers, including the last two.

Fourth, it seems that only Google.com serves Google Instant. If you visit country- based versions of Google, for example http://www.google.co.uk/ or http://www.google.ca/, you will not be able to use Google Instant. [This is expected to change in the future, as Google gradually rolls it out to other countries. --Ed.]