Google Instant – A Top 5 Ranking Doesn’t Cut It Anymore

One other observation about Google Instant is that the search box at the top, that so intuitively tells you what to search for (more on that later), takes up space. It effectively removes 2 results from being above the fold (depending on your screen resolution, of course but the most common resolution right now is 1024 x 768). So where you used to see 5 top results when you search, you now only see 3 results clearly – that is, if Google is inserting some AdWords ads at the top of the page.
This makes SEO even more important. You now need an even higher ranking than before Google Instant.
One other thing I noticed is that the results you get are…