"Starting this morning, I started to get a highlighted-box mouse-over effect along with that magnifying glass icon on most of my search result entries. Clicking on it toggles a preview image with some text highlighted as well. The image preview differs slightly depending on where the aforementioned text appears on the page."
The feature seems to be inspired by Ask.com's Binoculars, but it's a little more clever because it highlights relevant snippets, so you can quickly find them when you visit the page.
{ Thanks, Benjamin and Andrea. }
Got that too. Pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteI think this feature sounds more useful than Instant. I can see myself using it a lot, unlike Instant.
ReplyDeletecrazy thing :S
ReplyDeleteNot on mouseover!!! - argh!!! :-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, mouseover effects are a lot more annoying than a preview icon :-( (though more discoverable)
This is a copy of Bing.
ReplyDeleteI've had this for almost a week now. It's pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't on mouseover, you have to click first to start it.
But it's not really that useful.
I guess it's changes year, as it seems Google's making more and more changes this autumn!
ReplyDeletecrab
ReplyDeleteWhen Google rolls out this Search Preview feature, will they be blocking Opera browser users, as they're doing with Google Instant...and forcing them to change the Opera user-agent to Firefox to make it work...?
ReplyDeleteGoogle's all about "openness."
There is 1 serious issue that Google needs to consider. When they preload a page will it also load the ads on the page and by doing so reward the website with a page hit. This will generate income for the website owner even though no one actually visited the site.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen this yet. Is it still being served with search results? I really do not see the usefulness unless you can actually read text on the pages. Other than that, you're left deciding to visit a site or not purely on cosmetics.
ReplyDeleteGoogle's making so many changes this year! It's pretty curious!
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to sign up for this test?
ReplyDeleteToday the feature was enabled in my case also; Without doing anything ... I realized the change and it's the same as described;
ReplyDeleteI want to try this one but do not know how to sign up. Do you have any more details? Are you signed in with your google account?
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Even if it's in a scattered pre-release beta now it may never roll out system wide. Let's hope it doesn't. I'm not fond of what this would do to bounce rates - assuming each preview counts as a page view. If it doesn't, it's going to drastically affect page views in the opposite direction, getting rid of many people who are sneak-peekers.
ReplyDelete@MartynHiemstra you are right about adsense advertisement problem.
ReplyDeleteI think google might have planned for displaying sponsered list above and below search results.
Let's see how they are going to arrange sponsered lists.
Correction:
ReplyDelete@MartynHiemstra you are right about visibility and click through of sponsered list.
Is is possible to turn off this feature?
ReplyDeletea very good feature, but it looks like hiding the ads showing in the right side
ReplyDeletePlease make this go away. Is there any way to permanently disable this, without having to log in?
ReplyDeleteClear your browser's cookies.
ReplyDeleteIt is terrible. It just flashes annoyingly as you move your mouse, without offering anything useful. What is it for? Porn surfing? All that can be gleaned from a preview is large images.
ReplyDeleteIt is just a big annoying strobing flashing annoyance and yet one more thing I have to run a userscript to remove. Like the sidebar.
I don;t like these Google changes.. especially the Google places thing!
ReplyDelete