and advertisers relying on click-through counts may not be very happy about it.
The feature will appear as a small magnifying glass to the right of the web site link. You can click on that and preview the page without actually invoking it.
and advertisers relying on click-through counts may not be very happy about it.
The feature will appear as a small magnifying glass to the right of the web site link. You can click on that and preview the page without actually invoking it.
That’s pretty cool.
It doesn’t effect advertisers though as you still have to click into the website to see the ads.
The sponsored ads on the right don’t have the option so they’re not effected.
Unless I’m missing something
I think they may be blocking porn from previewing. I went to some obvious sites that didn’t have the option but after a bit of searching I was able to get some porn sites to that had the preview option, so that can’t be it.
It’s worth a try.
Surely that’s exactly how it does affect advertisers though - people aren’t seeing their ads because they’re not clicking through to the website itself.
Love it - but is there a way to set it so the magnifying glass is on by default on every search? I don’t see that in the settings and right now I have to click the magnifying glass before the previews show up on each search.
I hate it. My home computer is about five years old and bogged down speedwise. Everytime the clever Google feature starts trying to predictively display a result for my partial search entry, the search dialog box freezes up for a second or two.
How much memory do you have and are there any open slots for more memory. DDR2 memory is very cheap right now and adding memory is the best way to improve overall performance - hands down.
Five years ago, 1gig was probably a lot of memory. Now you can get either 2 gig of DDR memory (2 sticks of 1gig each) or 4 gig of DDR2 (2 sticks of 2 gig each) for about $70.
Newegg DDR memory
Newegg DDR2 memory
Processing a web page should not be much of a struggle for even a 5 year old processor, so I think the problem is either your internet connection or not having enough DRAM.
That is not what this thread is about. You’re talking about Google instant, which is old hat. This is a feature that was just added that shows a preview of search results when you hover over them. It has to be turned on first by clicking the magnifying glass next to any search result. It doesn’t get in your way at all if you don’t have the system resources or connection speed - you just don’t turn it on.
ETA: also, you can turn off the instant search results.
My bad. Carry on.
I’m a little peeved that the google instant donglethingy doesn’t display profanity. It’s nice to have it off by default in case you’re searching for something at work or on a public computer and someone might be looking over your shoulder. But when I’m at home I’d actually like to have porn sites and profanity show up.
Makes it easier to search for things like “who the fuck is taylor swift?”
Again, not what the OP is about at all.
Am I the only one who thinks this new preview is awesome?
Google search is getting too bloated, I wish they had an option to revert to the simple, lightweight UI they had until 8 or 9 months ago.
Interesting; I didn’t even notice the little magnifying glasses until this thread.
It’s yet another feature Google added that adds bloat and pisses off a bunch of people. We could have just as easily brought up the new Google Image search.
It may not be the main topic, but it is still relevant. Google is adding things–and turning them on by default, I might add–that people don’t want and piss off advertisers*. Why not just mention the new feature, and let people decide if they want it?
My guess: the old Facebook thing–there’s something in it for them.
*And people wonder why I don’t give Google Ads the benefit of the doubt with the whole blacklisting TVTropes thing.
Not sure if I like it. I often click whitespace to deselect, and unfortunately if I click the wrong line that causes the feature to turn on, which is quite annoying.
Can’t find a way to turn it off entirely, though.
How does it add “bloat”? It’s a teeny little icon that you don’t have to turn on.
Sheesh, some people are impossible to please (and really hate change. I’m sure if the feature had always been there and then they took it away suddenly, everyone here complaining now would be up in arms about it).
I’m with you. I think it’s cool, if useless to me specifically as I don’t tend to do a whole lot of actual searching. I usually know where I’m going and what the page looks like. Still cool though and no I’m not sure how this is bloat. Sure, it’s a feature I personally probably won’t use, but it’s not bogging down the whole ship, it’s kinda just, there.
The only way I can see it causing a problem is for people on non-broadband connections where it is dl’ing the thumbnails in the background - presumably after the page has loaded. If you have multiple tabs open that are also trying to dl a web page, then I can see this being a pain in the ass, but otherwise, I like it.
Back in the dark ages when 28.8k was considered “fast”, there was a tabbed browser from the ISP I had at the time (can’t remember the name). I would do this all the time since page took so frigging long to load. I would open up one link, switch, open a link on another page, switch, etc.
If google is trying to preload the cache with the previews and without any awareness of what is going on in other tabs, I can definitely see this being a problem. But for people with broadband, no way.
It background-loads the thumbnail sites, which slows down the page on weaker machines.
This won’t have an advertising effect, but I’ll bet it changes web design. Have a look at a Wikipedia page preview - just a long line of illegible text. If you run commercial sites (as I do) you are going to want your sites to stand out and be comprehensible even in the Google preview view. Which probably isn’t a bad thing in the long run.
I bet it would be fun to make searches on my netbook when I’m out in the boonies using a GSM connection.
And by fun I mean a frikin’ chore.
As it is now I can’t use the new Google’s image search under those conditions, and since the default is to have the bloat on it’s rather aggravating.
I’m going to switch from Chrome to Firefox on the netbook, Chrome loads faster but the last Firefox is much better than before, and since I can add Javascript blockers to FF I can get rid of all the bells and whistles Google has been force feeding as of late.
Surely you guys already remember that Google’s number one claim to fame in the old days was how simple the interface was. It was designed to load quickly on even the slowest connections, and is part of the reason it became so popular. Wait less than a second to load Google search–or 20-30 to load Yahoo? Of course you’re going to pick Google.
But, yes, I am a big fan of not forcing people to change something that already works. Google, especially, has long been able to handle different settings and plugins for different people, but seems to be abandoning that model into the Jobsian “We know you need this.” It’s stupid. People have legitimate reasons not to want features, and Google shouldn’t be forcing them on anyone.
And I don’t see why it wouldn’t affect advertising: before people would have to click on the page and thus see the ads, and possibly click on them. With Google preview, they don’t.
As for page design: if you think having really large fonts that can be seen in such a small preview is an improvement, you’re right, but only because too many sites default to too small a font. I really don’t want to see size 72 font everywhere, though.
ETA: The best result would be people making a special page for Google Preview, since Google’s web crawler is easy to identify. But how easy that would be to abuse!