Google search has changed a lot over the course of the last year. Beyond the most recent update (call it “Panda” or the “Farmer Update” – either way, it’s been an earthquake in the realm of SEO), Google has tapped into the power of HTML5 to make search faster. The concept of Google Instant, which could give you results before you were even done typing, was further enhanced with the presence of Instant Preview. Instant Previews allows users to click on a magnifying glass while in the search page and get previews of the first few results. Now, four months after the original release of Instant Previews, the concept is coming to mobile.
The exact approach is somewhat different in the mobile version than on the desktop. While the desktop searches allowed users to click on a magnifying glass and get a preview of pages as they hovered over each subsequent result, the mobile version is formed more like an image gallery. Clicking on the magnifying glass via mobile will load the first few pages in image form, allowing users to “skim” for pages that will likely contain their needed information.
While it may take a little while for the page previews to load on 3G phones, the Instant option is certainly more viable than bouncing back and forth between pages and the mobile search page. Users with Android devices running off of 2.2 (Froyo) or higher, or Apple products running off iOS 4.0 or higher, will be able to access the feature.
[via the Official Google Blog]
