It's 2011. Weren't we supposed to have amazing machines that could read minds by now?

Well it turns out that the search engineers at Google have been working on something that can do that. They're calling it the future of online search. An update that helps the world's biggest search engine read the minds of searchers.

Everyone else calls it Google Instant.

So, what is this Google Instant?

For starters, it's not actually a mind reading device. It's an update to Google.com that starts to show people what they want instantly.

As soon as you start typing, Google Instant starts showing you the results it thinks you want to see. No more finishing sentences, and no more having to hit that troublesome 'Enter' key.

It shows me what I want before I finish typing?

Not quite. It shows you what it thinks you want. And it isn't always right.

Basically, when you start typing, Instant guesses what word or phrase you're putting in. Take our favourite phrase, "search engine consultants".

You type "s", it shows you the results for "Sears". Continue on to "searc" and it's showing you results for "search". By the time you're up to "search engine c" Google Instant has shown you seven different pages of results.

And it doesn't show you what you want until you've typed "search engine consulta" (although it does show "search engine consulting" before that).

So Instant tries to guess what you're searching for – but it probably won't guess correctly until you've given it a very big hint.

Is it going to affect my search engine optimisation?

No. Google Instant isn't an update to the way Google ranks sites – just to the way that it shows them.

The only effect you may see is a slight increase in traffic. As FirstFound have selected the most searched for key phrases to target on your website, they're more likely to be suggested by Google Instant when your customers start typing.

When will I see it?

Google are keeping their cards close to their chests, but Instant is already live in the USA. It's currently only available to UK users who have Google Accounts, but we're expecting to see it turned on for everyone in Europe in the next few months.