Google adds site previews to Instant Search



You don't have to click on the magnifying glass. If you click anywhere in the area surrounding the listing, it will show the preview.
 
I find this really fucking irritating.

I seem to have a sort of tourettes syndrome in my mouse click finger, and now when click in white space around a link I get this stupid image load.

I'll be turning it off soon.
 
seriously, I don't understand how they're going to prevent errant dicking across the world:

"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"

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Instant Previews
 
i dislike this new feature as well. its annoying when i'm trying to search for a specific topic and my screen keeps changing with all kinds of different site and images, that google "thinks" they know what im looking for.
 
I think it will make a big difference to search and the way people visit sites. I believe it will make a huge difference to AM as well... If your design is shit then your traffic will probably reflect that once ppl work out what the magnifine glass does...
 
Definitely good for people who have attractive sites, which isn't hard with the ridiculous number of free/cheap template options out there. Suck it up and spend the extra 15 minutes finding a decent template you pussies.

Between this and the new local stuff, I don't understand how they're NOT losing rev since maps and previews both cover up ads on the right side. Or maybe its made up for by increased competition for those top 3 spots??
 
I turned off Instant Search, and I still have Site Preview. At least for me, I have to actually click on one of the magnifying glass icons to activate Site Preview for that search instance.

I actually like it. Google should add site preview to the ads on the right. That would be a huge win for some advertisers and affiliates - a huge loss for the lazier ones.
 
Thank your for sharing it, great stuff. It is similar to Cool preview addons of Firefox, probably it has been copied :)
 
I am indifferent to it really. I don't think I'll use it. If it helps someone else though that's nice. I can't understand why so many haters though.
 
Now, if they start monetize and put ads on OTHER PEOPLE PREVIEW SCREENS I'm going to start a campaign against them.