Search is the New Operating System

People far smarter than I have talked about the web becoming an operating system, and search being at the center of how we access the cloud. What better way for Google to position themselves as the C prompt than to turn the address bar into a search box?

I think operating systems are kind of an old way to think of the world. They have become kind of bulky, they have to do lots and lots of different (legacy) things. - Sergey Brin

Some have dismissed Google Chrome as being unoriginal, but it is "a step that needed to wait until the company had, essentially, come of age. It is an explicit attempt to accelerate the movement of computing off the desktop and into the cloud"

Google is Serious About Marketing Chrome

In this video Sergey Brin stated that they did not intend to lower Firefox's marketshare, but a day after launch Google was already marketing Chrome on their homepage (internationally and abroad to users of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome!)

How the Omnibox Shapes SEO

Recently I mentioned how Google Suggest could change SEO, and the Omnibox drastically extends those effects. Google did not pull any dirty tricks to force their search service into being the browser default, but they did try to turn the address bar into a search box - which will increase how often we search. The Omnibox offers short cuts as you type:

The parts that are in black are related search queries and the parts that are in green are typically one or more of the following

• the #1 ranking organic Google search result
• pages you recently visited that are relevant to the search query

SEO Implications

The "search results before the search results" have major SEO implications:

• Google is keeping some of the data entered before you hit the enter button. Getting people to search for your brand could be seen as another signal of quality.
• Raising the awareness of your brand and getting many people to search for your brand will help your brand related queries show up when people search for broader related brands.
• The value of a #1 Google ranking goes up, as the top ranked site has another opportunity to capture the searcher BEFORE they see the SERPs, and will be more likely to get clicked on when searchers see the search results (since they just saw the URL a second earlier).
• The value of awareness advertising, website interactivity, and consumer generated content go up as they make you more likely to show up in the list of previously viewed pages.
• For heavily advertised and/or frequently viewed pages I can see an advantage to adding a tomes of relevant text below the fold such that your site shows up for many related search queries. :)
• Given Google's large ad network and their network advantages in search monetization, they will easily be able to buy marketshare through advertising on their own ad network and bundling this browser with hardware providers.
• If the feature is widely adopted by other browsers it could lower the value of type in domain names (by making people more likely to search rather than type in a domain name). This could force some domainers to sell or develop, which could lower domain prices (and the .com premium)...this trend may already be underway given the pending Yahoo!/Google ad deal.

Your Thoughts?

How do you see Chrome changing SEO?