Your Google results are about to look more like your social feeds. On Friday, the internet giant began indexing Instagram content. That means Instagram posts from business and creator Instagram accounts will now appear in Google results.
With the new feature, Google is keeping apace with younger internet users who are increasingly turning to social media platforms as their search engines. A 2024 survey from Forbes Advisor and Talker Research found that Gen Z is 25% less likely than Gen X to use Google for searches. The survey also found that 46% of Gen Z and 35% of millennials prefer social media to traditional search engines. Google did not return Glossy’s request for comment.
“We are absolutely witnessing the biggest disruption in discovery and search behavior, since the introduction of Google, that brands have ever seen,” said Leslie Ann Hall, CEO and founder of e-commerce agency Iced Media. “Google and Instagram, who are not the most common partners, are now getting together in this fight for relevance where we’re seeing TikTok, ChatGPT, Reddit and Amazon really starting to dominate the search landscape.”
Katelyn Winker, vp of client strategy at e-commerce agency Front Row, said the integration reflects younger users’ reliance on visual imagery over text.
“Consumers are over having to digest content in an article type way,” she said. “They’re like, ‘How can I see something and learn about a brand from their aesthetic or from their videos, immediately.’”
In response to the new feature, brands will need to be thoughtful about how their Instagram captions and hashtags can break through a crowded search page, as that metadata will now be scraped by Google, Winker said. And the desire to break through crowded Google results may push beauty Instagram accounts to favor SEO-driven buzzwords over a more curated individual aesthetic.
“Is a cool coffee flat lay going to be interesting on Google? Or is it going to be, ‘I want to see a shop now,’ and, ‘Tell me about your product,’?” she said. “Will my Instagram grid now start feeling like paid media consideration versus organic, aesthetic lifestyle?”
The now-searchable Instagram posts join a Google results page dominated as much by AI and shopping results as traditional web links. In 2024, Google began rolling out AI-generated summaries to its U.S. users’ search results. And Google won’t be the only platform indexing Instagram posts: Microsoft-owned search engine Bing will also showcase Instagram posts. That will potentially have big implications for Instagram, Hall believes, as ChatGPT uses Bing’s search index. Microsoft is an investor in ChatGPT parent company OpenAI, though the relationship is in negotiations.
“Instagram results now coming into ChatGPT searches is wildly important for Instagram to also remain relevant as more and more people are going to ChatGPT for product recommendations,” she said.
But even with younger generations adopting social platforms and AI as their search engines, Google’s dominance is not necessarily under imminent threat. The platform commands around 90% of global search engine market share.
“This is Instagram trying to get content more visible and accessible within a platform that still drives the majority of search demand. It’s a response to social-first search. People are turning to social to discover content and find answers,” said Tom Mansell, vp of organic performance at the digital marketing agency Croud. “It will help keep people turning to Google for answers as their first entry point.”
Hall said the Instagram feature could offer a new avenue for emerging brands to break past the established names historically prioritized by Google’s SEO.
“I think it will benefit those indie, emerging, smaller brands and creators the most,” she said. “The ones that are scrappy, the ones that are agile, the ones that are very strategic in how they’re leveraging these tools at the intersection of trending search terms are the ones that are absolutely going to win.”
Winker said there are still many unknowns regarding the new function. She is curious if Google users who view an Instagram post on their search results will show up in Instagram’s reach or engagement, for example. But the feature does foretell how much of the online sphere is becoming more integrated to create a more seamless experience — at least when it comes to shopping.
In May, Google announced a new AI-powered shopping capability that will autopopulate checkout information on an online purchase. In 2022, Amazon introduced Buy with Prime to allow Prime members to make purchases fulfilled by Amazon warehouses on participating brands’ DTC websites. Shopify is reportedly piloting a program with ChatGPT to allow users to make purchases directly through the AI platform’s chat window.
“All the touch points are getting smaller,” Winker said. “The last piece would be, “I searched this on Google, I got my Instagram post, and now I want to buy this right here.’”
