

Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results - keltex
http://blog.keltex.com/post/1216080930/google-instant-steals-25-of-your-organic-search

======
randfish
There are two blog posts with real data from tens of thousands of search
queries showing that in reality, the impact of Google Instant has been
negligible:

\- [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-instant-fewer-changes-
to-s...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-instant-fewer-changes-to-seo-than-
the-average-algo-update)

\- [http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/seo/impact-of-google-
instant...](http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/seo/impact-of-google-instant/)

I wish this type of sensationalist supposition without data to back up the
assumptions received less attention here at HN. I've always been impressed
with the culture of "show me the stats" when it comes to subjects like
financing, startups, technology, engineering, etc. Not sure why that
dissipates when a marketing topic arises.

~~~
ajkohn
Well, the impact on search query length may be negligible but there are other
ways in which Instant may be changing search behavior. I have a small slice of
data I hope to post in the very near future.

~~~
ajkohn
Here's some preliminary data that shows that Google Instant may have changed
the distribution of clicks by rank, with more emphasis being put on results
above the fold.

<http://bit.ly/dAzvX3>

It's not about the query behavior, but about assessment behavior. As such,
your mileage may vary based on your particular rank for terms.

Outside of this analysis, the keyword length could remain the same, but a site
may receive less traffic if the auto complete algorithm has changed for
critical terms. Again, this will vary site by site - and where one loses,
another will gain.

------
spolsky
Well, Stack Overflow gets about 90% of its traffic from organic search
results, on the order of millions of daily page views. The traffic Google
sends us did not perceptibly change when they switched to Instant. So
anecdotally I can tell you that this is just demonstrably not true for one
large-volume site.

~~~
spolsky
Now that I think about it, the whole argument is bogus. For every SERP where
your result loses traffic by virtue of falling below the fold, there's
probably a SERP where your result gains traffic because the competitors fall
below the fold.

Sorry, this hypothesis is neither logically correct nor is it backed up by any
facts. Do some real experiments next time before you start making claims of
having discovered scientific truths.

~~~
keltex
I don't think that SO's users are representative of google's as a whole. For
example, there are a lot less advertisements on software development related
searches. What I was pointing out is the high-volume, high revenue searches
are being impacted. Plus I'm guessing that people who do those searches are
much less savvy than your community. They are less likely to scroll, they have
smaller screens and they are problem less discerning between paid and organic
results.

~~~
spolsky
Any evidence of that?

~~~
keltex
Which part? The fact that novice users have a hard time distinguishing between
PPC and organic results? Anecdotal with the many novice users I have dealt
with.

That there is less advertising for software related keywords vs. other types
of keywords? Try out Google's adwords traffic estimator:
<https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox>

~~~
spolsky
Any evidence that "high-volume, high revenue searches are being impacted"?

------
malloreon
Instant's goal is to change user search behavior away from potentially long
tail queries towards the head.

If they can short circuit your potentially 4-6 word specific search that has
fewer and lower paying advertisers associated for a shorter, higher
interest/CPC search, they stand to make a lot more money and please larger
brand advertisers.

That they can wrap it up to users as "decreasing search time" and "better
search results" is brilliant.

~~~
moultano
I don't understand the cynicism. Do you have any evidence for this whatsoever?

~~~
patio11
He's absolutely, screamingly right. They're an advertising company. Big bang
changes to the website exist to sell more advertising. Everything else they do
is window dressing to make people forget that they are an advertising company.

~~~
moultano
If all Google showed were ads, no one would come to the site. Furthermore,
Google is already outrageously profitable. The only real threat is if people
start searching somewhere else. Do you really think they would make changes
that make that more likely? Google has strong competition in Bing, Yandex, and
Baidu. Even if profit were the only relevant motive, short term profitability
is not something Google needs to worry about.

It also seems that your argument applies to every ad supported site. Are you
contending that the nytimes is in the ad business and not the news business?
Is the news mere window dressing for their advertisements? If not, then how
are they different from Google?

~~~
chc
That's actually a better characterization of the newspaper industry than you
probably mean for it to be. From the editors' perspective, of course it's all
about the news (I'm sure this is true for Google's search engineers too). But
from the publisher's perspective, the news basically is some very attractive
window-dressing.

~~~
moultano
True, but it's Google's search engineers that made this change, not it's ad
engineers.

------
qeorge
User's overwhelmingly click the top result anyway. [1] If you're not in the
top 3, you're close to invisible.

I'm not sure this is the scandal the author makes it out to be.

[1] <http://training.seobook.com/google-ranking-value>

------
lukev
No more than having a small monitor steals organic search results.

~~~
sprout
No, it does steal more. Whatever your monitor size the instant suggestions
should steal enough space to knock out an organic result.

~~~
swombat
It's a damn shame there isn't anything like, say, a scroll wheel or a scroll
bar, to look at the results below the fold. That would really sort things out.

------
henrikschroder
There's been quite a lot of UX research on this, and the concept of "the fold"
simply doesn't exist for webpages. People scroll and scan, even the least
knowledgeable ones.

~~~
brlewis
You're exaggerating. Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information
above the page fold. The part of what you're saying that's true is that people
scroll at all. This is new. See <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-
attention.html>

~~~
photon_off
You're both right. Users aren't reluctant to scroll if they believe there is
something they want to see. However, most pages are designed so that all of
the relevant stuff is above the fold. Most of the time, you just _don't need_
to scroll down, because the page is set up to have the most relevant things
above the fold, and the least relevant things below.

~~~
brlewis
We're both right, except for the part where he said that the concept of "the
fold" simply doesn't exist for web pages.

------
archangel_one
Regardless of whether they're correct about it lowering traffic or not, I
strongly dislike the use of the word "steal" here. To me that signifies a
strange sense of entitlement; the search results are not "yours" and you don't
have a God-given right to them, so Google cannot steal them from you. You
might as well claim that "I'm Feeling Lucky" steals your search results
because users never see any mention of your site if you're in second place, or
that showing 10 results per page is unfair to those in 11th place.

I wonder a little if this reflects a general debasement of the word "steal".
Some years ago it clearly referred to taking physical property, but maybe the
smear campaigns from the music / movie industry have successfully extended the
scope of the word to include things like this.

------
TallGuyShort
Interesting observation. It's very subtle, but potentially important.

As for myself, I don't think there's a big difference. I use Google Instant
just to help me form my queries, because my query changes as I see the
intermediate results. The paid results and the first organic results help me
see if my query really is going to give me the most relevant results,
otherwise I try modifying the query a little bit. When I'm done with that
phase I click search, which removes the suggestion box, finalizes the results,
and then I scroll down and open whatever results appear promising.

------
bretpiatt
Do we know if the suggested results are based on search frequency or revenue
maximization? -- i.e. if I type in "plan my" will it suggest "travel" above
"vacation" if the PPC/CTR on the ads for "plan my travel" generate more $s
than "plan my vacation"?

That seems like a much more clever optimization than stealing screen real
estate. The other optimization to this is if they can guide users to a smaller
list of common search phrases they can drive up the prices for them -- a
fragmented list of search phrases is very bad for Google.

~~~
chopsueyar
Interesting, so...

ORDER BY (CPC * CTR);

versus

ORDER BY (CTR);

 _yeah, i know they're not using SQL_

~~~
ojilles
CPC * CTR = RPM, and that's what AdSense optimizes for. In effect it's
brilliant in it's simplicity as it combines both advertisers wishes (CPC) and
consumer's wishes (CTR).

------
sever
once you hit return, the suggestion box disappears, and you are back to normal
mode, do people not hit return?

------
RBr
Google has two goals with Instant... first, they want to improve the user
experience by offering inline suggestions - makes sense - I like that part.

What they're not advertising is that Google is dealing with the same decreased
CTR and advertising revenue that the rest of the Internet is. In an effort to
seem as user-centric as possible, they've introduced a user friendly feature
with a refinement that increases the CTR on their ads.

This isn't a shocking move, it's a sign of the web to come. What's really
disappointing is that Google isn't devoting more time to coming up with
different ad units and testing more creative ways to encourage users to click.
The online ad industry is stagnant - advertisers and publishers are scared to
make changes. Google isn't any different.

~~~
Pewpewarrows
I've always found it funny that advertisers swear by CTR as much as they do.
It's almost as if they completely forgot the last few decades of television
advertisement. For television, no one gives a damn if a viewer goes out to buy
the product right that instant. It's all about repetition and building
psychological reinforcements so that once the viewer actually needs something
along the lines of what that product offers, they subconsciously lean towards
that specific product as opposed to its competitors.

Granted, it's a lot easier for someone to just click some text from their
computer than to get up in the middle of a show and drive to a store, but the
same essential theory still applies. Which is why I don't understand how CTR
is valued so highly over impressions.

~~~
underdown
I think you're speaking in terms of a specific market. A local florist ppc'ing
does not have the luxury of affording to brand in this economy.

inherently a click affords more branding anyway as you are much better able to
control the presentation of your brand on a page you have complete control
over.

------
njharman
>So instead of giving you “better search results”, you’re getting less search
results.

Are certainly not mutually exclusive. And when searching for a specific
thing/site (rather than going for broad exposure on a given topic) less
results, preferably 1 (the correct one) is best.

------
RexRollman
I have to say that I am NOT a fan of Google's instant search. I hope that
Google will one day offer a URI that has instant turned off by default, such
as <http://google.com/instantoff>

------
chanux
Fast company article about Google instant and ad impressions -

[http://www.fastcompany.com/1687976/google-instant-
impression...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1687976/google-instant-
impressions-3-seconds-sneeze)

------
jbillingsley
I'd like to see a poll of users to find out what percent actually uses instant
as it is meant to be used. I know I still do searches how I always have, by
hitting enter. I imagine most non-technical users are still hitting enter.

------
klochner
What percentage of people actually visit google to search?

It's much less "instant" if you add in the time to get to the google page.

I user the address bar in chrome and my browser search bar in firefox.

------
rmc
You're assuming that each place on the first page gets equal amounts of
traffic. The 4th result does not get the same amount of traffic as the 1st
result, it gets much much less.

------
RyanJones
I can say that both on my personal sites, and on my Fortune 100 client
websites, I have seen increases in search traffic from Google after instant
was lost, not decreases.

------
VladRussian
today is the day of science on HN - this 25% of Organic Free-Range Antibiotic-
Free Search Results were definitely topped by masturbating squirrels. I bet
squirrels had much more fun in their story than Google in its.

------
vaksel
a lot of these "improvements" are made for making people pay. i.e. like that
local business results

------
jemfinch
I can't remember the last time I used a screen whose native resolution was
1024x768.

