Is Google Instant Pointless?

After all the hype of what Google is bringing out today, we finally found out it was Google Instant. It produces search results before you finish typing what you are looking for.

So what has changed?

• You can take control of Instant Search by hitting enter or click ‘Search’ button! Shows the same old style SERP
• Higher Impression but lower CTR (Adwords campaign can face disadvantages by this), you can read more here http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-impact-on-search-queries.html
• 3 features that changes the Future of Search: Instant Results, Predictions & Scroll to Search!
• Impact of Instant Search on SEO: Nothing BIG! Ranking stays the same! Behaviours on Queries changes
• There is an option to switch off Google instant if needed. They say it will help elderly people to search but how will they find this button? Like Jaamit said his mother takes just 5 minutes to search on Google and to be honest my mother doesn’t even know how to turn on the PC.

Have you heard Google instant is for us – we can spend all day and night long playing with the predictions of what we are looking for, how cool!!

Benefits:

• Faster searches – how will this change? Here is what Marissa Mayer, the company’s vice president of search and user experience, said until now, each search typically lasts 25 seconds – 9 seconds of typing, 1 second in which the query reaches Google, is processed and sent back, and 15 seconds during which the user considers which search result to click on. But with Google Instant the average search will be shortened by two to five seconds per query – which, given the billions of people who use the service every week, would mean 11 hours of searching saved every second.
• Smarter predictions – who is this for? Is it for someone who doesn’t know what they are looking? I am sure when people know what they are looking for these days, when they are shopping for a product or an information.
• Instant results

Some gripes people have found so far:

• @malcolmcoles – Google instant has ruined googling your own name.
• @SEO_Doctor –  Try searching for ‘porn’, you have to hit enter…what’s the point of that! Not sure why he was searching for that though!
• @iVinay - Google Instant Search doesn’t yet work on iGoogle & Google SSL

Quotes of the day so far on “Google Instant”:

• Based on 2hrs on twitter the predominant verdict on Google Instant seems to be divided between “meh” and “bah” by @Jaamit
• Google Instant = pointless by Saurav and @RichardShove
• By @supaswag – Google Instant – The Conservative Nanny State Of The Interweb
• By @oilman – I can see Google instant causing what would have been a 3 word query to be a 2 word query – maybe people will learn to search smarter
• @fantomaster – Google Instant Search: the dyslectics’ paradise. (Or is that actually “nightmare”?)

Finally what we all have been waiting for:

@mattcutts – Everyone asking if Instant will kill SEO? Watch this video: http://goo.gl/KC8X Hear me praise SEO and why it will persist.

Coming soon: Google instant search for mobile.

Image by @iVinay