Of course any change to how Google enacts its searches is bound to have implications for search engine optimization, and considering that Google Instant is being billed as the biggest change that Google has made to its interface since its inception, then surely this could mean a significant reinvention of SEO practises?

Well in fact, whilst Google Instant certainly represents a functional change to how we use Google, in regards to SEO it is perhaps not quite as significant as might first seem. Essentially, the algorithms and ranking metrics are the same as they have always been, which means that in theory SEO remains untouched by the implementation of Google Instant.

However, search engine optimization is a subtle business, and it doesn’t just rely on algorithms and ranking metric and instead depends equally on user behaviour, which will surely be significantly altered by Google Instant’s novel way of searching.

For example, as Google Instant suggests results as you type, then it is bound to suggest certain queries over others; this will essentially have the effect of prioritizing certain entities over others, based on your likelihood of searching for them.

For search engine optimization this is certainly significant, as it creates an aristocracy of popular search terms. Of course, in most cases it is unlikely that a user is going to “change their mind,” and search for something that they had not intended to, however, across millions of users the effect could be to prefer certain search terms over others.

The other issue is in regards to long tail searches; i.e. as Google Instant is suggesting pages of results long before you’ve finished typing your keyword then it makes it less likely that a user is going to use longer keywords, this could make SEO packages focused on long tail keywords essentially a thing of the past.