Google testing new feature: Expandable results - Screenshots

[franck~]

Google is testing yet another feature. From the article:
"Google is testing a new search feature within its search results. It's an expandable content that can display more information about a site including an image and a short text based on the content of the site, Related links, and "Inside this site" links. There is also a search "Search this site" feature."
http://www.yellowpipe.com/articles/G...re-testing.php

There are full size screenshots.

[BlueDevilMedia]

Could this be the reason that Google's search results have been a little off lately?

[mdvaldosta]

Great, looks like G is working on their plan to give users enough content to not have to actually click on a site.

[LaCabra]

Thanks for sharing franck ... good find!

[Skinny]

Nice. I like the idea. Sometimes you land on a site and its like what this isn't even what I was looking for. Now you can see if a site is truly relavent.

Skinny

[stephenmunday]

Advantage: Could save you bandwidth.

Disadvatage: If Google is using its cache to show this "snapshot", it could be way out of date compared to the actual site.

Disadvantage: Some Adsense sites seem to rely on visitors coming and then exiting through their Adsense ads. But if those visitors don't come at all....

[jimkarter]

I think it means more traffic for google, less traffic for us, hence more rev for google and less rev for us.

[liquidboy]

This is complete plagarism (depending on how much content they take), they need to ask to use your content. Its exactly like the issues there having with taking pictures and storing them and not asking to take it!

I expect push back legally if this type of feature is released globally!

[jimkarter]

Isn't it little like using one frame to show your advertisement and the other to show some other site.. BAD.

[mad4]

It looks from the screenshots that this will only appear for sites which are number 1 in the results and is an extension of the groups of links that appear under the first listing for certain searches.

My thoughts are that the people at number 1 won't kick up a fuss about google using the screenshots to give them a greater share of the search results page and the people at numbers 2 and 3 won't have their screenshots shown so can't do anything either.

[boohlick]

nice find there franc i think google now focus to give user want they really want

[steve_gts]

Disadvantage: Some Adsense sites seem to rely on visitors coming and then exiting through their Adsense ads. But if those visitors don't come at all....

For me if the adsense sites loose out thats a good thing, they are a real pain when you have a site for an actual business and they rank higher in the searches.

Surely when people are looking for a product or service they would rather go straight to the horses mouth than through half a dozen adsense sites before they get there anyway.

[Mong]

I think there is need of something new

[MaxM]

Would this eventually be feasibly manipulated for an online store? Say to feature products or the like.

[SEbasic]

This blows...

Another way for Google to steal your visitors. Great.

[gian22]

I think this will make people click on the adds located on the right side of the page... It could be a marketing strategy. Because if you don't like any of the results on the first page. You are going to click on the adds!

[Sharpseo]

This sucks. If Google can give a user exactly what they're looking for directly from the SERPs, they're effectively "cutting out the content provider". That sounds like a copyright violation to me.

Webmasters should be pissed off about this. It may give users a good tool to find info, but it is tantamount to stealing content. Their intelligent algos can probably figure out exactly what a user is searching for, find it in the page, and serve it up in the SERPs.

Originally Posted by SEbasic

Another way for Google to steal your visitors. Great.

Yep.

[seopup]

This will be very bad for a big percentage of webmasters especially websites that rely on information only , no online tools , no shops etc .

A big percentage of visitors are looking for a short answer about a thing , google will give them this information on their website , no need for users to click on result page . How many times you searched and were looking only at result listings and you found what you need ? Never ? It happens for me sometimes , now with so much information on result pages I will click on results less .

From a user point of view this is great , I will find 10-40% of information I am looking for on Google also I will have to choose from a variety of results and choose the best one withoutclicking on each , time to find what I need will be shorter. Less visitors for spam pages .

It has a good thing for webmasters too , if you have a good website with good content people will click on your pages . So if you have a website that is worth for visitors to visit it you're lucky ! MFA owners will have to redesign their websites . Also your visitors will be more targeted/interested on what you have there .

There must be a policy of how much content they can show in their results . Showing so much information in their result pages , with what are they (Google pages) different from MFA websites , splogs and all thash on the web?

As I know (±) eg magazines, papers can print a small amount of characters (±500) indicating the source of original content and author . Interesting how much content will they show , from screenshots they should be ok with this but is a big diference between magazines and search engine result pages .

So ...

As a user this would be a great thing and would be even better if I can turn it on/off from preferences page .

As a webmaster 50/50 will require some more design work for my websites (and I hate this , I like clean (not empty ) websites ) and all of us will lose visitors = money , less for us more for Google...


One more thing ...

Why do they test this , are they unsure if they are providing to user what are they looking for in first result ?

I am for this . I would love to have on option to turn this on

[cmpolis]

www.ask.com << has been doing something like that for a little bit, and they had commercials about it

[seopup]

Yes this thing is old (Ask is not the first) but ASK has ±2% of share and Google a lot more .