Google stepped things up a gear in the battle to win the hearts and minds of web users with the release of its latest version of Google Chrome. Not only does Chrome 11 have over a dozen security bugs fixed thanks to an uncompromising stance taken by Google which paid an unprecedented $16,500 to outside security debuggers but the browser also now recognises speech.
Google, as expected since the new CEO stepped in, has taken its development and roll out of products to an entirely new level. Google’s bug-hunt bounty pay out is only a symptom of this. Its spearheading of speech input technology in browsers allows the company to move ahead of competitors in a hotly contested area.
Speech input browsers are at their most effective when on mobile devices where keyboards are either too fiddly to use or take too long. Google’s the first browser to introduce speech input technology which makes it also the most user-friendly when it comes to using search and the web on small screens or devices which have no keyboard and mouse.
The question here, of course, is just what impact will this have on your SEO? In the first instance, as things stand, not much. Certainly in terms of what is going on under the hood in search it has zero impact. However, just as Google Instant, another change which had no technical impact on the mechanics of SEO, influenced end-user behaviour and changed SEO practices and then it did it again with the long-tail keyword so will the habit of using voice to command a browser, eventually impact on SEO.
It is a fact that no one speaks the same way they write. At the moment all search is based around text input. Optimisation of websites takes place around strategic keywords and techniques which are designed to second-guess how online visitors look for a website and deliver results.
The moment we get into speech recognition the search queries themselves will change radically. For one the long-tail keyword will go the way of the Dodo. People simply do not speak in a long sentence when looking to find something in search. This means that there will be a major shift in focus on single keywords with the position of the ‘Long Tail’ taken up by search queries made up of two keyword combinations at the most.
Habits are difficult to break. Online visitors who have been conditioned to speak in a word or two into mobile devices when looking for something are unlikely to easily revert back to typing long sentences.
For webmasters who are looking to optimise their websites this places an entirely new level of strategic thinking regarding search, on the table. For website optimisers it’s just another problem to take onboard and overcome.
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