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.
Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
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Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#22Well, 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.
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.
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#23There'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.
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
And yet that page had at least 7 folds.
I think the goal of enabling visitors (and expectation of visitors) to utilize strategic navigational features and view key information within the top portion of the page is valid.
And yet, convention dictates web site navigation to be concentrated within specific page areas (top, bottom, sides) and most visitors can anticipate certain features and functionality to reside within one of those areas as best (popular) practices are copied and commoditized.
Search results are not the same as the loud flashy bleeps and blips on the latest MTV website. There's an expectation that a user will navigate through the page, on to multiple pages if the first page is either full of useless ads and/or SEO pollution or unsuitable expectations.
I personally believe 'the fold' of a web page is a bunch of crap. But that's just me
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#24Instant'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…
I don't understand the cynicism. Do you have any evidence for this whatsoever?
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#25No more than having a small monitor steals organic search results.
I bet small monitors DO have an effect, and small monitors + instant is probably worse.
But what that effect is exactly, that's harder to say. It's not quite as simple as the OP seems to think, IMHO.
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#26There 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.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.
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#27Instant'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…
If they nudge people away from long tail queries, won't this mean that people will perceive the relevance of the search results to be worse?
I doubt Google wants to start driving people to other search engines by making it harder for people to find what they are looking for.
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#28Well, 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.
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 scient…
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.
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#29What 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.
Re: Google Instant Steals 25% of Your Organic Search Results
#30Fast company article about Google instant and ad impressions -
http://www.fastcompany.com/1687976/google-instant-impression...