Today and last night were for me examples of the digital industry at both it’s best – and it’s worst.
Some bloggers and publications published their initial intelligent thoughts on what Google Instant actually means for brands and marketers; those posts are continuing as ideas crystallize and we all play with this new feature. Other blog posts and Twitter streams, sadly, were full of the sort of nonsense and noise that frustrates me with the industry – things like “SEO is dead” and “CPCs will sky rocket”.
No doubt it’s a busy day for our friends in Buckingham Palace Road and other Google offices.
There’s one group I’ve not seen widely discussed or asked their opinion. Those faceless, anonymous little devils called consumers whom, ultimately, generate the activity that keeps us all employed.
Change is bad?
Change is something that most of us struggle with at times. Whilst Instant Search isn’t a complete redesign of the Google interface, it is a shock the first time it jumps you from the Google homepage to search results changing-as-you-type (known forever more as “interstitial search results”). For some consumers, I’d imagine this could be an unwelcome change. I tweeted the reaction of a 30 something friend who doesn’t work in the marketing industry earlier today:
One reaction to Google Instant: "Turn it off, it's in the way"
I also wonder if there won’t be some users calling their IT departments saying “A virus has taken over my PC, it’s hijacking Google and changing the results” or similar. After all, past Google changes have prompted calls like this. Perhaps that’s why Google made announcing this change an “event” and ensured major press coverage and therefore consumer education globally?
Bing to Gain?
Changing an interface – on software or a site – is always a risky. Just think of the changes Microsoft introduced moving from the Office menu system to the “ribbon” in Office 2007. Many hated it, complained they couldn’t find things and wanted to roll back to 2003; we experienced that here with some colleagues. A change Microsoft believed was “good” was in fact “bad” for many to begin with, because it got in the way of them completing their task.
So do I, as some have speculated elsewhere, think Bing will gain users as they abandon “annoying” Google that is now getting in the way of them searching and – vitally – finding?
No, is the simple answer. A minority may move – but I’d suggest they were going to, anyway; most consumers have strong loyalty to their chosen engine out of sheer habit and roll with any interface changes (if they even register them consciously). Some consumers will turn Google Instant off of course; but I think most will “roll with it”, as they did search suggestions, the new Google interface of earlier this year and other changes over the years.
According to numbers from StatsCounter.com, in the UK only just over 50% of browsers will work with Google Instant (data from Q1 to Sept 2010) so a lot of consumers will not use this feature until they upgrade – or will see it at home but not in corporate environments where older browsers are standard because internal systems don’t work with the latest versions of IE, FireFox et al. That’s interesting in itself – will they notice, or care enough to find out why (or complain to IT?)
Some Consumers Will Love It
Whilst writing this, I recieved an email from a colleague in a non-search role with their thoughts:
Positive reaction to Google Instant Search
(Thanks to MM for this)
So, some consumers will love this feature – and, most interestingly, it may expose them to not only new search strings but completely different topics and the results related to them when searching.
That might be good for some sites and drive more traffic; but if consumers hover to read the suggested searches and results for more than 3 seconds, the adwords advertiser whose ads have been shown will record an ad impression, potentially reducing their CTR and quality score.
Right now, we’re on a watching brief – seeing how consumers react, and how this actually impacts campaigns.
I’ve asked friends and colleagues to send me their reaction to this – I’ll post them here as comments if I receive more.
