No idea what it was about. the shame of it is that you don't see the daily logo changes if you use the search bar built into Firefox... :-(

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/sep/08/google-logo-games-future-search

Ah, it's all making sense now in typical Google fashion.

Quickly reading on BBC about their new instant search engine which we'll see in the UK next week (www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11239037) one comment was this:

"...I am going to see results I don't want because until I type enough that it knows what I want, it is going to show me links I am not interested in."

Surely this is going to knock the SEO market sideways?! Could be some big, big bucks in it for people who can "work" the new system.

My take on it is quite simple, Google are showing off, they are an early adopter of HTML5..

So what is HTML5 (Hyper Text Mark Up Language 5) and why should we care? See this link http://www.focus.com/images/view/11905/ to get a better understanding

All google are doing is showing off, plain and simple...

Is that not what Market leaders should be doing, showing off new technology and it's application?

I like the thought of instant search but it does need some thought, yes you might be seeing things you don't need to but you're not having to do anything extra to see it and if the algorithm works out what you're after quite quickly you may find what you were looking for way quicker than before.

Technically, the instant search isn't HTML5 it's Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) being used to fill a space where nothing happens which may benefit a certain percentage of their user base by giving them a faster search. People used to the old way can turn it off and they could also just ignore it as all they would be doing would be typing exactly what they would be and hitting search. If anything it leads to faster searches for them as well as they are not having to wait for the page to reload itself and the search to do it's processing.

HTML5 may be a buzz amongst web developers but for end users there really isn't anything that will change for them. All that is happening is the people who set the standards for the web evolving the ability of the internet to deal with new things that were not even considered back in the very beginning. For end users all you will see are new interesting web applications and websites popping up taking advantage of these "new features" and providing a better experience for them.

As for working the system. People will always work the system whatever it is and Google work hard to stop them. Nowadays the thinking is that having a well constructed site, with lots of relevant, often changing content will have you ranking well for the terms you wish without a huge amount of work or trickery. SEO has come a long way from general keyword stuffing, in fact to the point that Google no longer pay any attention to the meta keywords tag and concentrate on the changeable content on the site.