Earlier this week we reported on Google Suggest, the latest search feature from the leading search engine. How will it affect what people search for and what sites they find?
Google Suggest provides a user with suggestions while they type into the search box. This sort of functionality has been available on other search engines for some time and has been available to some extent on Google as well. From this week however, it will be switched on as the default on all Google searches and will affect both the way people search and what keywords they use. This will have big implications for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns.
Suggesting keywords will probably result in fewer search terms being used. This will likely adversely affect longer terms (long tail keywords) and shorter, 1-2 word terms, focusing instead on a smaller number of "suggested" terms. This will mean the number of competitive terms, where large amounts of traffic can be sourced, will drop.
This decrease in the number of high volume keywords may affect both brand terms and non-brand terms. As previously mentioned, long tail terms (4 or more words) will likely produce less traffic than before - and for some sites, this could make piggybacking on other company's brand terms a more attractive proposition.
Naturally, this focus on certain keywords will have an effect on Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. As PPC campaign managers start to bid on suggested keywords, volumes will increase and push the cost of these keywords up. However, Google didn't get where it is today by trying to keep prices down. By having customers competing on a smaller number of keywords, the prices for those keywords will inevitably increase. This will most likely affect advertisers with smaller budgets or profit margins.
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