Google Instant Preview Issues

Google has rolled out Instant Previews, a feature which allows users to hover over search results to generate previews of the webpage that they would land on should they decide to make the all important click.

The most pressing issue that jumps out with this feature is that fact that the previews cover over the paid search sponsored ads, or ‘ads’ as they now appear to be labeled on the search engine results page (SERP), as you can see from the image below. Considering that ‘ads’ account for reportedly circa 90% of Google’s income, this could well be a short-lived problem for PPC specialists, but watch this space for further updates and developments.

It is also interesting to see that the paid search ad’s above the natural results are not affected by the Instant Preview image. This will only serve to further intensify the competition for paid rankings of positions 1-3 amongst PPC advertisers and may help to further increase average CPC bids across ALL manner of keywords, something that Google will be happy to see and will profit heavily from. It is this reason alone which may lead Google to allow the preview image to continue to cover the paid ads on the right of the natural results. Again, this is something we shall be keeping a keen eye on.

Website design will now also surely be affected by the Google Instant Preview feature. The preview shown above would appear to be a perfect example of a good preview on first impression. However, as we all know, first impressions don’t always give you the full picture. Look a little closer, and you will see that the search carried out was ‘buy trainers.’ There isn’t a single picture of a trainer on the preview image, although there is a link to ‘Fresh Footwear’ which would justify JD Sports’ webpage’s position at the top of the natural search rankings from Google’s point of view.

Visually enticing relevant content on webpages must now surely taken precedent over relevant content alone, and this is something that web designers and website owners will surely need to take into consideration when creating new sites and/or updating existing websites.

Something that could be affected in a positive way is bounce rates. Too often, users click on to a page and click off straight away (between 1-3 seconds of landing on the page) because they know instantly that the site is not for them. With the Instant Preview feature, users will now be able to check before they enter a site if the content on the particular page is going to be relevant to what they are looking for. In fact, due to Google’s insistence on constantly improving their users’ experience on their search pages, this would appear to be the primary motivation behind the introduction of this preview feature.

Finally, from a PPC perspective, it would be interesting to see if Google will ever feel the need to ad the Instant Preview feature to paid search ads themselves. It could be argued that there isn’t enough space on the results page for this to be implemented, unless the preview images cover the natural search results. We at Network Intellect are very intrigued to see how this plays out over the coming weeks…

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