5 ms·

Google starts showing full page previews in search results

30 points by bjonathan 16y ago

rarestblog 16y ago
This is very bad. People won't have to visit the page they found - meaning no visit, no ads shown, no money. Every real content producer is going to lose BIG with this. Also this looks like World-Wide Copyright Infringement to me. Possibly, a good reason for class action suit from everyone who created any kind of site. Google now creates and distributes large portions of your web page without any kind permission. (I don't think this (near full-size screenshots with readable text) could pass as "fair use" in any kind of sane trial) Sadly, this is exactly what I predicted 2 years ago: "What worries me is the amount of text they [Cuil] show on the search page. It's becoming much and much more of a nuisance that search companies think it's okay to massively copy parts of your site and display them. "
- jeromec 16y ago
  No, you're thinking small. First, the full page shows including ads. If anything potentially more sites and ads will receive a view as users mouse over results. The difference is a user doesn't have to go to a page and be annoyed with pop-up messages before hitting the back button. When a site with the desired content is found the user will then click through to it. This appears to me to offer end users a better search/browse experience, and that's always a win for everybody.
  - rarestblog 16y ago
    You can't tell your advertiser: "Hey, your ads, probably, were shown about a hundred thousand times on Google. Well, I can't prove it, users can't click on it and also they see a random frame from your ads (if they see it at all), but still now you can pay me". Why would I (as a visitor) need to click the site if I see what I searched for right there, on Google screenshot?
    - jeromec 16y ago
      Why would I (as a visitor) need to click the site if I see what I searched for right there, on Google screenshot? Because that's not how people typically interact with websites. If it was, the World Wide Web would simply be made of small JPEG pic versions of what sites look like. If you have a site with quality content on it, which happens to be ranked high in search results I can pretty much guarantee you are still going to receive your high click-through traffic. You may even receive more. The only people who lose out with this are those with low quality or spam type sites where their traffic is "crap, not what I wanted" hit-the-back-button clicks, which don't provide much value to advertisers anyway.
      - rarestblog 16y ago
        Imagine this: you search for some topic. You hover over one result and get a pretty big chunk of text about that topic, you hover over the next one - you get one more big chunk of text, you hover over 2-4 more - you've all the information you need. There's no more need to click. I don't mind "small JPEG pic versions of what sites look like" - these are fine. I'm strongly against the JPGs of site where you can read text from my site. And with a move of mouse - from next site. All cropped around the subject without any ads or any message attached to article that PAID for this article.
        jeromec 16y ago
        I'm sorry, but I still think you are thinking small. Let's assume the type of site or query is not shopping or research related where a user must scroll, click, etc. for the site, and it's news type editorial. You're thinking users will prefer to squint and experience the page/article with the preview version instead of simply clicking through to the site? What about comments? Hacker News is a great example of just how much value comments add to content. I think you're guarding user behavior that doesn't need to be guarded. The only sites that have anything to fear from this are ones users don't want to be on. If users want to be on your site, they will be.
        16y ago
  - arb99 16y ago
    Advertisers aren't going to pay more because surfers (might have) seen a small version in the sidebar of a search result, so saying that ads will receive more views is pointless imo.
    - jeromec 16y ago
      Savvy brand marketers would probably disagree with that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg&feature=fvsr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg&feature=fvsr But that's besides the point. My point is that a high quality content site will not have any trouble receiving click-throughs and selling ads -- ads which are probably more effective for the advertiser and relevant for the user as well.
      - il 16y ago
        Believe it or not, but most advertisers are actually not brand marketers, and are interested in performance and results over impressions(think SMB e-commerce).
  - il 16y ago
    It's a smaller version of the page, those ad impressions are basically worthless in terms of clicks/conversions for the advertiser. It's also unclear if the ad display/tracking Javascript even runs in the preview window. Frequently, if the information I'm searching for appears in the search result, I don't click through to the source, I'm sure that is the case for many searches. If this takes off, you can expect to see greatly reduced traffic and ad revenues for certain types of sites(e.g. reference/lookup).
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
arb99 16y ago
Should be able to disable it in robots.txt or meta tags, so shouldn't be a big deal for publishers.
- brownleej 16y ago
  That's true, but that doesn't make it OK. Google is making copies of other people's work without permission, and displaying them for profit. That is the kind of thing that copyright law was meant to prevent. This should be an opt-in feature, something that publishers can enable in robots.txt, if they think it will help them get more traffic.
  - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
    People have been using extensions to add website thumbnails to search results for years without a peep from web developers screaming copyright infringement. Why don't I see you complaining about them providing textual context to the term searched for? Oh, right, because every other search engine on the planet does it. So now that Google is adding by default something that extensions have had for a while now, a graphical context in addition to text, you suddenly think it's evil? Give me a break.
    - rarestblog 16y ago
      First of all - majority of users don't use extensions. If 0.1% of people see my content stolen somewhere - fine, take it, I don't care. If 99.9% of users suddenly could see my content on Google - hey, that's a BIG problem. Second - thumbnails are small and unreadable - they are fine. Google adds READABLE content to their results. That's infringement. Especially since content is cropped around the subject user searches for.
      - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
        http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/images/google-new-previews.png http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/images/google-new-previews.png You can read the text on the preview on the right aside from the extracted portion? Because I'm pretty sure you're the only one. I can only make out the site logo, the headline of the page, some button text, and an odd word here or there. It's just a contextual image just like the surround text of the search phrase is contextual text.
neovive 16y ago
I could see definitely see arguments on both sides of the fence regarding this feature. It may also lead to more work for designers, since the "first impression" of a website would occur before the click-through.
aresant 16y ago
This experiment illustrates the potential for Google.com to evolve into a cloud-based Chrome. They can own the browsing experience regardless of the browser or platform used. Think about the potential this has as browsing from televisions, set-top boxes, mobile etc continues to explode.
notahacker 16y ago
I can see the usability benefits, not least when it tells the user the obscure phrase they searched for is found in the third article down the page. Unless the website is designed to be readable as a scaled down .jpeg and/or the entire useful content of a page is encapsulated in the single paragraph Google chooses to highlight I don't think it's a massive loss for webmasters. If sites have to look halfway decent to get decent click throughs it could be a godsend for designers though. The implementation is pretty ugly...

30 points by bjonathan 16y ago

This is very bad. People won't have to visit the page they found - meaning no visit, no ads shown, no money. Every real content producer is going to lose BIG with this. Also this looks like World-Wide Copyright Infringement to me. Possibly, a good reason for class action suit from everyone who created any kind of site. Google now creates and distributes large portions of your web page without any kind permission. (I don't think this (near full-size screenshots with readable text) could pass as "fair use" in any kind of sane trial) Sadly, this is exactly what I predicted 2 years ago: "What worries me is the amount of text they [Cuil] show on the search page. It's becoming much and much more of a nuisance that search companies think it's okay to massively copy parts of your site and display them. "

jeromec 16y ago
No, you're thinking small. First, the full page shows including ads. If anything potentially more sites and ads will receive a view as users mouse over results. The difference is a user doesn't have to go to a page and be annoyed with pop-up messages before hitting the back button. When a site with the desired content is found the user will then click through to it. This appears to me to offer end users a better search/browse experience, and that's always a win for everybody.
- rarestblog 16y ago
  You can't tell your advertiser: "Hey, your ads, probably, were shown about a hundred thousand times on Google. Well, I can't prove it, users can't click on it and also they see a random frame from your ads (if they see it at all), but still now you can pay me". Why would I (as a visitor) need to click the site if I see what I searched for right there, on Google screenshot?
  - jeromec 16y ago
    Why would I (as a visitor) need to click the site if I see what I searched for right there, on Google screenshot? Because that's not how people typically interact with websites. If it was, the World Wide Web would simply be made of small JPEG pic versions of what sites look like. If you have a site with quality content on it, which happens to be ranked high in search results I can pretty much guarantee you are still going to receive your high click-through traffic. You may even receive more. The only people who lose out with this are those with low quality or spam type sites where their traffic is "crap, not what I wanted" hit-the-back-button clicks, which don't provide much value to advertisers anyway.
    - rarestblog 16y ago
      Imagine this: you search for some topic. You hover over one result and get a pretty big chunk of text about that topic, you hover over the next one - you get one more big chunk of text, you hover over 2-4 more - you've all the information you need. There's no more need to click. I don't mind "small JPEG pic versions of what sites look like" - these are fine. I'm strongly against the JPGs of site where you can read text from my site. And with a move of mouse - from next site. All cropped around the subject without any ads or any message attached to article that PAID for this article.
      - jeromec 16y ago
        I'm sorry, but I still think you are thinking small. Let's assume the type of site or query is not shopping or research related where a user must scroll, click, etc. for the site, and it's news type editorial. You're thinking users will prefer to squint and experience the page/article with the preview version instead of simply clicking through to the site? What about comments? Hacker News is a great example of just how much value comments add to content. I think you're guarding user behavior that doesn't need to be guarded. The only sites that have anything to fear from this are ones users don't want to be on. If users want to be on your site, they will be.
        16y ago
- arb99 16y ago
  Advertisers aren't going to pay more because surfers (might have) seen a small version in the sidebar of a search result, so saying that ads will receive more views is pointless imo.
  - jeromec 16y ago
    Savvy brand marketers would probably disagree with that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg&feature=fvsr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg&feature=fvsr But that's besides the point. My point is that a high quality content site will not have any trouble receiving click-throughs and selling ads -- ads which are probably more effective for the advertiser and relevant for the user as well.
    - il 16y ago
      Believe it or not, but most advertisers are actually not brand marketers, and are interested in performance and results over impressions(think SMB e-commerce).
- il 16y ago
  It's a smaller version of the page, those ad impressions are basically worthless in terms of clicks/conversions for the advertiser. It's also unclear if the ad display/tracking Javascript even runs in the preview window. Frequently, if the information I'm searching for appears in the search result, I don't click through to the source, I'm sure that is the case for many searches. If this takes off, you can expect to see greatly reduced traffic and ad revenues for certain types of sites(e.g. reference/lookup).
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

arb99 16y ago

Should be able to disable it in robots.txt or meta tags, so shouldn't be a big deal for publishers.

brownleej 16y ago
That's true, but that doesn't make it OK. Google is making copies of other people's work without permission, and displaying them for profit. That is the kind of thing that copyright law was meant to prevent. This should be an opt-in feature, something that publishers can enable in robots.txt, if they think it will help them get more traffic.
- Pewpewarrows 16y ago
  People have been using extensions to add website thumbnails to search results for years without a peep from web developers screaming copyright infringement. Why don't I see you complaining about them providing textual context to the term searched for? Oh, right, because every other search engine on the planet does it. So now that Google is adding by default something that extensions have had for a while now, a graphical context in addition to text, you suddenly think it's evil? Give me a break.
  - rarestblog 16y ago
    First of all - majority of users don't use extensions. If 0.1% of people see my content stolen somewhere - fine, take it, I don't care. If 99.9% of users suddenly could see my content on Google - hey, that's a BIG problem. Second - thumbnails are small and unreadable - they are fine. Google adds READABLE content to their results. That's infringement. Especially since content is cropped around the subject user searches for.
    - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
      http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/images/google-new-previews.png http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/images/google-new-previews.png You can read the text on the preview on the right aside from the extracted portion? Because I'm pretty sure you're the only one. I can only make out the site logo, the headline of the page, some button text, and an odd word here or there. It's just a contextual image just like the surround text of the search phrase is contextual text.

neovive 16y ago

I could see definitely see arguments on both sides of the fence regarding this feature. It may also lead to more work for designers, since the "first impression" of a website would occur before the click-through.

aresant 16y ago

This experiment illustrates the potential for Google.com to evolve into a cloud-based Chrome. They can own the browsing experience regardless of the browser or platform used. Think about the potential this has as browsing from televisions, set-top boxes, mobile etc continues to explode.

notahacker 16y ago

I can see the usability benefits, not least when it tells the user the obscure phrase they searched for is found in the third article down the page. Unless the website is designed to be readable as a scaled down .jpeg and/or the entire useful content of a page is encapsulated in the single paragraph Google chooses to highlight I don't think it's a massive loss for webmasters. If sites have to look halfway decent to get decent click throughs it could be a godsend for designers though. The implementation is pretty ugly...