Google announced “google instant” yesterday, letting the world know that there will be a big change to the popular search engine. It seems to work similarly to the auto-complete function that bing and yahoo use but instead of keyword suggestions it actually displays results. New York Times writer, Claire Cain Miller, had this to say:

“Google’s attempt to greatly change the way people search could throw a wrench in the business models of the companies that have latched onto the Google ecosystem.

Analysts said that it was too early to tell how Google Instant would affect search engine marketing and optimization businesses. But because Web pages and ads show up before people finish typing queries, it could be more challenging and expensive for them to pick keywords that catapult their sites to the top results, analysts said.

For example, it has been less expensive for a small hotel in Paris to buy ads that show up when someone searches “Paris boutique hotels in the Marais” than when someone searches “Paris hotels.” But now that Google immediately starts showing results, people may type long queries less often. As a result, advertisers would have to bid for more common terms.

Also, because Google Instant focuses attention on the search box and top results, people could spend less time looking at the ads that show up on the right side of the page.” [Read Full Article Here]

In my opinion, this shouldn’t make too much of a difference in the amount of people clicking on sponsored links. Most of us that use Google on a daily bases have trained ourselves to ignore ads, and while occasionally I actually do click those links, most of my traffic goes to the results.

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