Has Google Instant changed the SEO landscape for good?
Google’s press conference about Google Instant wasn’t even finished when statements of “SEO is dead” & “Google killed SEO” started showing up on Twitter and across the blogosphere.
No, (twice over, by the way – according to Google’s Q&A session), Google Instant isn’t going to kill SEO. In fact come to think of it I can’t really see any one thing that is going to kill SEO or why Google would want to kill SEO or make it Irrelevant. Fundamentally nothing’s changed. The highest relevant searches will still rise to the top which has always been the ultimate goal of search engine optimization.
Google Instant is simply another means of weeding out irrelevant content and providing users with the best possible search experience. I look at it as a type of “think for me” search. Google posted a behind the scenes look at how Instant works to their blog.
“Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.”
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that there won’t be any fundamental changes with the way that users search for information. I also realize that this will affect the way we optimize a website, but in all fairness it’s a little bit premature to jump to conclusions or draw a line in the sand and claim that it “makes SEO irrelevant” as I seen one PR “expert” claim… perhaps he should stick to PR and leave optimization to those a bit more qualified 
Google’s boy wonder Matt Cutts had this to say on twitter (@mattcutts). “Oy. Instant != death of SEO. SEO has change as a core part, and a good SEO recognizes, adapts, even flourishes with change.” and I must say that I agree completely with his statement.
If you’re like me and a bit curious to know which searches Google Instant is registering you can enable Web History and monitor that a bit closely. I must say it’s pretty interesting so far.
Google claims that Google Instant will be rolled out world-wide before the end of the year and there’s been some buzz that Google Instant for Mobile, will be coming “later this Fall.”… which follows Google’s new strategy of mobile first.
