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This is awesome news. It was always a pain to set up my search engine to have instant off - and of course instant turns back on if you performed a second search
by x1798DE 9y ago
This is awesome news. It was always a pain to set up my search engine to have instant off - and of course instant turns back on if you performed a second search on the results page of the no-instant page.
I have never once had my search experience enhanced by this anti-feature, and most of the time it's a hindrance, because I'll start reading the search results, then based on that come up with a new query and start typing it while continuing to scan the page. In non-instant world, maybe 60% of the time I'll end up finding what I want to click on as I continue to scan the page, then stop typing and click on that (or I'll be reading the name of someone that I want to google from the except from the page). In instant world, I have to read the whole page, decide if I need to make a new query, then type it (which is the exact opposite of the intent of instant, mind you).
The worst thing about Instant was that if you started typing something that didn't have results it wanted to display (because maybe it was a NSFW-type query or because it just didn't have good results for the incomplete string), rather than leaving the old page up until it had something it wanted to show, it would just blank the old page. Horrible.
- benhoyt 9y agoYeah, I worked for Oyster (www.oyster.com) and had NSFW instant search issues all the time -- if I mistyped our site domain with two W's as "ww.o" the Instant Search results displayed a rather lewd image. Uh, sorry boss, that wasn't what I was after.
- jxramos 9y agoI wasn't even aware of this feature, sounds dangerous indeed to jump the gun and search for things as I'm entering the search. Search suggestions make sense, overly eager premature searches not so much.
- legostormtroopr 9y agoProbably shouldn't have tried to search for that ("ww.o") at work.
- bambax 9y ago> It was always a pain to set up my search engine to have instant off - and of course instant turns back on if you performed a second search on the results page If you have an account it stays off? I always hated instant and disabled it, and never had to disable it again...?
- rotrux 9y ago"...because I'll start reading the search results, then based on this come up with a new query and start typing it..." This is a great example of how, from an ML/NLP standpoint, Instant-Search promoted confirmation-bias. If the idea is to learn how a user searches, that user should not be told how they should search.
- Bromskloss 9y agoKind of how upvoted posts on Hacker News or wherever get more clicks just because more people get exposed to them. I guess you just have to be aware of it and take it into account. Is there any other way?
- brndn 9y agoI would guess that the intention of the feature was not just to give users results quicker, but to also make them feel as if Google search is very fast. So it may have been effective even if you didn't click any links.
- acosmism 9y agoright meaning that they potentially lose out on valuable ad targeting data this way
- Bromskloss 9y ago> It was always a pain to set up my search engine to have instant off - and of course instant turns back on if you performed a second search on the results page of the no-instant page. Hmm, is it not just a matter of turning it off? Or are you doing something more advanced than using the standard Google search page?
- x1798DE 9y agoI guess if you log in, yeah. I keep my browsing highly compartmentalized, so I don't log in to Google for the purpose of searches. I used URL parameters to turn it off, but they don't persist.
- Bromskloss 9y agoI don't log in either.
- zmix 9y agoInstant is great for atypical searches: when doing conversions or using Google as a calculator, then instant-search would give the result in the suggestion.
- zmix 9y agoOops, I should have added, that I never visit the website but use the Omnibar.
- wodenokoto 9y ago> In non-instant world, maybe 60% of the time I'll end up finding what I want to click on as I continue to scan the page, then stop typing and click on that My problem is I look at keywords from the results and want to use them to refine my search, and as soon as I type the first letter of my refinement, I lose access to the words I need. And as you say, results on half words have never helped anyone, and there are already suggestions for what these half words might expand to.