search marketing

What is Google Suggest? You’re certain have seen it, but may not know it by name. Put in simple terms, Google Suggest is the auto-complete functionality you see when you type a query into the Google search box. As you type, Google attempts to suggest possible query phrases to you. As soon as you begin typing, the system displays up to ten suggestions and, as you continue to type, the system refines the suggestions.

The suggestions you see are drawn from Google’s knowledge of the most popular search queries. In the screen capture on the right, you can see the results from typing “ap” into Google.com.

For the purposes of this article, Google Suggest is interesting for two reasons: First, with the arrival of Google Instant, predictive search becomes very important to all. Google Suggest gives us some insight into what we can expect when Google Instant makes its appearance here in Asian markets. Second, as Google Suggest is tuned to reflect local search popularity, it provides us with a way to gain some insight into variations between local search audiences. For those of us working in Asia-Pac, this is particularly valuable as many of our clients’ target markets cross national boundaries.

While we agree that the arrival of Google Instant does bear consequences for the search marketing industry, we don't share the view that it is a complete disaster. The change is simply the latest step in the continuously evolving (and highly competitive) web search market. Google has always been an innovator in this space and, say what you will about some of their recent business moves, their search has always moved forward, towards more complete, more accurate results. Google Instant is simply the next step in that cycle of innovation.

Moreover, Google Instant, by itself, is not the defining event in this most recent series of enhancements. Rather, we believe, it is the combination of Google Instant with the revisions in the predictive query feature that will have the biggest impacts. While Google may have made it faster and easier for people to search, they have certainly raised the bar for smaller firms, or for those who simply have not put the effort in building their sites into something Google considers to be highly relevant.

Several things seem likely to result from these changes:

Over 40% of the Facebook Fan Pages created by the Asian travel industry show signs of abandonment, according to the 2010 Asian Travel Engagement Report from water&stone.

The report, based on an industry survey and an examination of well over 100 travel company Facebook pages, found 41% of Facebook Fan Pages shows signs of abandonment. 9% of the Pages had not been updated by their owners in the last 30 days. 5% had not been updated in 60 days and 27% had not been updated by their owners in the last 90 days.

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