Google says nothing changed it just got faster. However, I have a few new sites and pages as well as about a dozen older sites that had improved in rankings recently, all of the rankings for these websites seem to resemble the rankings I had back in late July. Anyone else notice something similar?
Nope. The new feature instant just reduce the chance for your website to being appeared for some certain keyword. The real-time results may caused users to stop typing more and select the choice they think it is best suit, even they have not done type the keyword yet. If your ranking is suffering then it would come from another reason instead of this feature.
Nope, Instant does not change rankings at all. You are most probably getting personalized search results. Turn Off "Instant" and sign out from your Google Account, then check your rankings to get your true rankings
Google will actually keep your search history based off your IP address in conjunction with what browser you are using. Don't believe me, do various searches on both browsers and compare your ranks.
no its none of that. Im not a total noob guys. I just ran SERPs checks on a ton of keywords that I keep constant track of, while the results were very similar to late july figures they were not correlated enough to think there was a connection, so its likely a small algo change or other factors. I had only completed a handful of tests when I posted this message, those test were showing near identical results to late july. thanks for the replies though.
Those that will surely benefit from this Google Search feature are those site targeting short tail keywords. Long tail keywords are now dead.
not rankings but traffic, why would i continue typing in the search box when the results are already showing and there's a site there that might be what i'm looking for? instant is a major distraction for the searcher, it will reduce the length of queries. the longer your key phrase, the more you will be affected, and anyone relying on long tail will get a haircut.