What Does Google Real-Time Search Mean For Internet Marketers?
By Anna Johnson on December 15th, 2009Last week Google introduced some major changes to its search engine: real-time search results, hot topics in Google Trends, and some new changes to mobile search. So what do these initiatives mean for Internet marketers?
First, a quick summary of Google’s new initiatives…
With Google’s introduction of real-time search, you’ll be able to see up-to-the-moment results deriving from, say, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace updates, and new headlines from news and blog sites.
Listed as ‘Latest results’ embedded within the usual list of results, you’ll see a window you can scroll through containing links to the most recent news related to your search.
The ‘Latest results’ are automatically updated, but you can backtrack to see anything you might have missed. You can also view real-time results by themselves by clicking a new ‘Latest’ option in Google’s Search Options menu.
You can also filter your results to see updates from specific sources such as Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and others, and you can also view the latest results and new search options on iPhone and Android devices.
Google’s second main innovation is the addition of ‘hot topics’ to Google Trends. These show the most common topics people are discussing, or posting about, on the web in real-time. This change also marks the graduation of Google Trends from Google Labs to being a fully-fledged Google service.
Google’s third big initiative is extending voice search capabilities on Android devices to recognize Japanese. Google is also using the location of users’ mobile phones to provide helpful features, such as showing “what’s nearby.”
Finally, ‘Google Goggles’ is a new visual search application that lets you search for objects using images rather than words, using your camera phone.
Internet marketers will probably be most interested in Google’s introduction of real-time search and ‘hot topics’ on Google Trends. While ‘hot topics’ may assist with market research, the introduction of real-time search certainly impacts the search engine optimization (SEO) game.
Now, more than ever, Internet marketers and search engine optimizers may need to think in terms of real-time search engine optimization or real-time SEO, not just ‘static SEO’.
For some Internet marketers, SEO will increasingly be about making the top of the real-time results, as well as the static results. In some cases, it may be more important to get to the top of the real-time results, while ranking first in the static results may be more pertinent to other Internet marketers.
In any case, the Internet is clearly ‘going real-time’ so real-time search is certainly something Internet marketers will need to address if they wish to remain relevant in the SEO game…
Source: Amit Singhal, “Relevance meets the real-time web,” Official Google Blog, December 7, 2009
