Google Instant Previews

Emily MacNair - November 23, 2010

Google has stated many times that they strive to make searching as easy as possible.  They’ve made quite a few changes, particularly with the fairly recent release of Google Instant. You may remember when it was launched a few months ago, and probably have noticed through routine searching, Google Instant enables you to essentially search as fast as you can type.

Google has taken their search results a step further by announcing Google Instant Previews. With Instant Previews, you as a searcher have the ability to see a snapshot of web pages listed in the search results without having to actually click through to the pages. To preview a page, all you have to do is click anywhere within the snippet shown on the search results page.  By enabling users to take a brief glance at the listing before they click, Google is helping searchers better find the type of information that they are searching for. Google said that during testing, people who use the new Instant Previews are 5% more likely to be satisfied with the result they click on.

Beyond simply seeing a snapshot of the web pages listed, Instant Previews can also feature text call outs within the preview of a page, which will be highlighted in orange. The call outs are determined by where your search term(s) appear on the page, which is just another way to evaluate the web page’s content before clicking away from the search results.

Below is a search for NY City Hotel where you can easily see the Instant Preview, along with what the call outs can look like:

Try searching for anything on Google and test out the new Instant Preview to see what you think about Google’s latest change to their search results page.