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Have you noticed a change in how the Google search box works? If not, you may soon. Google has introduced Google Suggest. I would imagine it has reached all the servers, but it may still be making the rounds.
Google Suggest is something that was created to assist Internet searchers. As you start to type in a search phrase, Google guesses at what you are looking for and displays a dropdown box with possible alternatives. Google says that providing “more refined” searches initially will make searching more convenient.
I’m horrified.
I am even more horrified to learn that Yahoo does the same thing. I don’t often use Yahoo, so I had no idea.
Is This Bad News for Webmasters?
Ah, yes. The great thing about being ranked in the search engines has always been that a site gets ranked for many search phrases related to the main keyword phrases that were being targeted. And, I’ll wager that will still happen.
The question is, Will anyone ever type in long-tail phrases if they are presented with the most popular phrases when they first start to type a search??
I doubt it. As human beings, we are very prone to take the path of least resistance. At least Google isn’t as bad as Yahoo.
Here’s How it Works
Let’s say that someone was going to search for “real estate in Atlanta”. Here’s what they’d see in Yahoo:
Here’s what you’d see in Google:
Will people using Yahoo just click on one of the national brokerage names? I would think someone using Google would continue to type until they included the “atlanta” part.
I’m going to be watching my stats to see if the long-tail starts dropping off. If you want to turn off Google Suggest, you can. I found it very annoying because I was looking for the drop down containing my own terms, not theirs.
I’m not sure if it shows up only if you’re using the Google toolbar, but if you have the three links to the right of the Google search box as shown above, just click on Preferences and look for the last option called Query Preferences.
Anyone else think this is bad news for webmasters?
Hi, Kathleen;
Pretty soon, we won’t have to type in anything: they’ll just read our minds and give us the answer they wish to give us. Wonderful, isn’t it?
Seriously, this is simply a divice to create perceived value in the keywords that they “offer” in suggestion.While I have no trouble ignoring those suggestions, I imagine some will be downright confused and sheepishly just go right along with them. HOWEVER (and this is a big “However”) folks searching for homes rarely enter a seach without a geographic identifier, so at least the engines should be in the same city (HA!). Your WebReporterTool should show you that this has little, if any, impact on your long tail searches. We get a ton of traffic from Yahoo and Google and it doesn’t seem to have affected us yet. Maybe it will, but other than opposing ALL limitations on allowing people to search for EXACTLY what they are looking for without distraction, I view this as a bother, not a threat.
Mike,
I’m glad to hear your positive outlook. I don’t know when Yahoo started doing this, but Google just announced it on August 25, so it’s still early.
I hope it stays just a bother!
Kathleen