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Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Today Google introduced
Instant Previews,
a new search feature that helps people find information faster by showing a visual preview of
each result. Traditionally, elements of the search results like the title, URL, and snippet—the
text description in each result—help people determine which results are best for them. Instant
Previews achieves the same goal with a visual representation of each page and where the
relevant content is, instead of a text description. For our webmaster community, this presents an
opportunity to reveal the design of your site and why your page is relevant for a particular
query. We'd like to offer some thoughts on how to take advantage of the feature.
First of all, it's important to understand what the new feature does. When someone clicks on the
magnifying glass on any result, a zoomed-out snapshot of the underlying page appears to the right
of the results. Orange highlights indicate where highly relevant content on the page is, and text
call outs show search terms in context.
These elements let people know what to expect if they click on that result, and why it's relevant
for their query. Our testing shows that the feature really does help with picking the right
result—using Instant Previews makes searchers 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results
they click.
Many of you have put a lot of thought and effort into the structure of your sites, the layout of
your pages, and the information you provide to visitors. Instant Previews gives people a glimpse
into that design and indicates why your pages are relevant to their query. Here are some details
about how to make good use of the feature.
Keep your pages clearly laid out and structured, with a minimum of distractions or extraneous
content. This is always good advice, since it improves the experience for visitors, and the
simplicity and clarity of your site will be apparent via Instant Previews.
Try to avoid interstitial pages, ad pop-ups, or other elements that interfere with your content.
In some cases, these distracting elements may be picked up in the preview of your page, making
the screenshots less attractive.
Many pages have their previews generated as part of our regular crawl process. Occasionally, we
will generate screenshots on the fly when a user needs it, and in these situations we will
retrieve information from web pages using a new "Google Web Preview" user-agent.
Instant Previews does not change our search algorithm or ranking in any way. It's the same
results, in the same order. There is also no change to how clicks are tracked. If a user clicks
on the title of a result and visits your site, it will count as a normal click, regardless of
whether the result was previewed. Previewing a result, however, doesn't count as a click by
itself.
Currently, adding the
nosnippetmeta tag
to your pages will cause them to not show a text snippet in our results. Since Instant Previews
serves a similar purpose to snippets, pages with the nosnippet tag will also not show previews.
However, we encourage you to think carefully about opting out of Instant Previews. Just like
regular snippets, previews tend to be helpful to users—in our studies, results which were
previewed were more than four times as likely to be clicked on. URLs that have been disallowed
in the robots.txt file will also not show Instant Previews.
Currently, some videos or Flash content in previews appear as a "puzzle piece" icon or a
black square. We're working on rendering these rich content types accurately.
We hope you're as excited about this next step in the search results as we are. We're looking
forward to many more improvements to Instant Previews in the future.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle Instant Previews provides visual snapshots of web pages in search results, highlighting relevant content to help users find information faster.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eClear website layout and structure are important for better Instant Previews, as they offer a glimpse into the site's design and relevance.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eDistracting elements like interstitial pages or ad pop-ups should be avoided as they can negatively impact the preview's attractiveness.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eInstant Previews do not affect search rankings or click tracking; it's a visual aid for users to make informed decisions.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsing the \u003ccode\u003enosnippet\u003c/code\u003e meta tag will opt a page out of both text snippets and Instant Previews, potentially reducing click-through rates.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Google introduced Instant Previews, a feature displaying visual snapshots of search results via a magnifying glass icon. These previews highlight relevant content with orange markers and text callouts, improving user satisfaction by 5%. Webmasters should ensure clear page layouts, avoid distracting elements like pop-ups, and be aware of the \"Google Web Preview\" user-agent for on-the-fly screenshots. The feature does not alter search rankings or click tracking, but pages using the `nosnippet` meta tag or disallowed in robots.txt will not have previews.\n"],null,["# Instant Previews\n\n| It's been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated (for example, some images may be missing, and some links may not work anymore).\n\nTuesday, November 09, 2010\n\n\nToday Google introduced\n[Instant Previews](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-instant-results-instant-previews),\na new search feature that helps people find information faster by showing a visual preview of\neach result. Traditionally, elements of the search results like the title, URL, and snippet---the\ntext description in each result---help people determine which results are best for them. Instant\nPreviews achieves the same goal with a *visual* representation of each page and where the\nrelevant content is, instead of a text description. For our webmaster community, this presents an\nopportunity to reveal the design of your site and why your page is relevant for a particular\nquery. We'd like to offer some thoughts on how to take advantage of the feature.\n\n\nFirst of all, it's important to understand what the new feature does. When someone clicks on the\nmagnifying glass on any result, a zoomed-out snapshot of the underlying page appears to the right\nof the results. Orange highlights indicate where highly relevant content on the page is, and text\ncall outs show search terms in context.\n\n\nThese elements let people know what to expect if they click on that result, and why it's relevant\nfor their query. Our testing shows that the feature really does help with picking the right\nresult---using Instant Previews makes searchers 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results\nthey click.\n\n\nMany of you have put a lot of thought and effort into the structure of your sites, the layout of\nyour pages, and the information you provide to visitors. Instant Previews gives people a glimpse\ninto that design and indicates why your pages are relevant to their query. Here are some details\nabout how to make good use of the feature.\n\n- Keep your pages clearly laid out and structured, with a minimum of distractions or extraneous content. This is always good advice, since it improves the experience for visitors, and the simplicity and clarity of your site will be apparent via Instant Previews.\n- Try to avoid interstitial pages, ad pop-ups, or other elements that interfere with your content. In some cases, these distracting elements may be picked up in the preview of your page, making the screenshots less attractive.\n- Many pages have their previews generated as part of our regular crawl process. Occasionally, we will generate screenshots on the fly when a user needs it, and in these situations we will retrieve information from web pages using a new \"Google Web Preview\" user-agent.\n- Instant Previews does not change our search algorithm or ranking in any way. It's the same results, in the same order. There is also no change to how clicks are tracked. If a user clicks on the title of a result and visits your site, it will count as a normal click, regardless of whether the result was previewed. Previewing a result, however, doesn't count as a click by itself.\n- Currently, adding the [`nosnippet` `meta` tag](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots-meta-tag#nosnippet) to your pages will cause them to not show a text snippet in our results. Since Instant Previews serves a similar purpose to snippets, pages with the nosnippet tag will also not show previews. However, we encourage you to think carefully about opting out of Instant Previews. Just like regular snippets, previews tend to be helpful to users---in our studies, results which were previewed were more than four times as likely to be clicked on. URLs that have been disallowed in the robots.txt file will also not show Instant Previews.\n- Currently, some videos or Flash content in previews appear as a \"puzzle piece\" icon or a black square. We're working on rendering these rich content types accurately.\n\n\nWe hope you're as excited about this next step in the search results as we are. We're looking\nforward to many more improvements to Instant Previews in the future.\n\nPosted by Jeremy Silber, Software Engineer"]]
