Google's New Search Suggests Results as Users Type
Google’s New Search Suggests Results as Users Type
Erin Lubin/Bloomberg
Marissa Mayer, Google Inc.'s vice president of search products.
Marissa Mayer, Google Inc.'s vice president of search products. Photographer: Erin Lubin/Bloomberg
Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google Inc., talks about the company's unveiling of Google Instant, a faster Internet search feature that gives users results as they type in requests. Google says Instant saves 2 to 5 seconds per search and will be available today on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 8 browsers in the U.S. Mayer speaks with Cris Valerio on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg)
Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, unveiled a faster Internet search feature that gives users results as they type in requests.
Google Instant saves 2 to 5 seconds per search and will be available today on the Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 8 browsers in the U.S., Vice President Marissa Mayer said at a press event in San Francisco. A mobile version should be rolling out in the next few months, she said.
The company is making the upgrades to keep its lead in the $12.4 billion U.S. market for search-related advertising and stave off competition from Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. Mountain View, California-based Google had 65.8 percent of searches in the U.S. in July, down from 66.2 percent in June, according to ComScore Inc. Yahoo added share, while Microsoft’s Bing held steady.
The service “is going to draw more users and more activity and that is going to be good for us, for advertisers and, most importantly, for users themselves,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in an interview at the event.
The feature also changes text search ads while users type -- a shift that will help marketers get more relevant ads in front of consumers, according to Jason Hennessey, director of search engine optimization at EverSpark Interactive, an Atlanta- based search marketing consultant.
Good for Advertisers
“By the person saving several seconds for every search, that’s more time they can be spending on pay-per-click ads,” Hennessey said.
Google gets the bulk of its revenue from how many times Web users click on ads.
The service not only gives instant results, but predicts what users want to search for with a series of suggestions. Users can select a suggested query without further typing. People who prefer not to use the feature can turn it off.
Google Instant will also be offered to users in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the U.K. that have capable browsers, Mayer wrote in a blog post. The company is working on rolling it out to all platforms and regions in the coming months, she said.
Yahoo and Microsoft, trying to expand search-based advertising revenue, have teamed up to take on Google. Under their 10-year deal, Yahoo plans to use Bing’s search technology on its sites.
The U.S. search-ad market may grow 16 percent this year, faster than the broader online advertising market, which is expected to expand 11 percent to $25.1 billion, according to estimates by EMarketer Inc. in New York.
In July, Yahoo’s share of U.S. searches rose to 17.1 percent from 16.7 percent in June, while Bing was unchanged at 11 percent, according to ComScore in Reston, Virginia.
Google climbed $6.18, or 1.3 percent, to $470.58 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, gained 22 cents to $13.75. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft fell 3 cents to $23.93.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net
Rate These Stories
Rate this Page