I’ve just seen Google Instant for the first time.

It’s a simple idea. As you type your search term, the results appear in real time.

It’s also a really bad idea. As you type your search term, the ads also appear in real time.

Imagine I’m interested in finding a hotel in Londonderry.

Big Marketing Ideas

Original insights that work.

As I start typing the word hotel, the results start to come in. Note the AdWords ad being displayed – it has nothing to do with what I’m looking for:

As you get to hotel London, the results change. Note the ads still have nothing to do with what I’m looking for:

As I finish typing, I finally see the results and ads that I’m looking for:

You might be forgiven for assuming that the ads displayed aren’t counted as impressions. But you’d be wrong.

Here’s what Google have to to say:

“How impressions are counted

When someone searches using Google Instant, ad impressions are counted in these situations:

– The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).

– The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter or selecting one of the predicted queries.

– The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds.“

You read that correctly. 3 seconds.

Try it for yourself. Try Google Instant and see if you spend longer than 3 seconds looking at the results that aren’t what you are looking for.

Impressions are an integral part of CTR, quality score and more. Google Instant will (sometimes drastically) increase the number of impressions and dilute the accuracy of the information.

Google Instant is simply bad news for Google AdWords account holders.