Slashdot Mirror
Did Google Go Instant Just To Show More Ads?
eldavojohn writes "Google, already the largest search engine in the United States, went instant a few weeks ago. MIT's Tech Review asks why Google went instant and is skeptical that users actually look at search results before they finish typing their query. Othar Hansson, Google's lead on the initiative, informs them otherwise and claims that Google's traffic monitors didn't even blink at the extra data being sent across — primarily because of its insignificance next to streaming one video on YouTube. Hansson also reveals that Google's search engine is no longer stateless and therefore takes up a little more memory in their server hives. The Tech Review claims that 'sources at the company say Google Instant's impact on ad sales was a primary focus in testing the service. Google only gets paid for an advertisement, or sponsored link, when a user clicks on the ad, and ads are targeted to specific searches. By displaying a search's ads onscreen a couple of seconds sooner, the frequency of users clicking on those ads could only go up.' So money seemed to be the prime motivator and the article also coyly notes that the average length of time a user spends between typing in any two characters is 300 milliseconds — much too fast for old JavaScript engines. Of course, you might recall Google's efforts to change all that with JavaScript speed wars. Do you find Google Instant to be useful in any way, or does it strike you as just more ad gravity for your mouse?"
I do most of my search via the Chrome address bar or on my mobile, I didn't even notice this feature existed. Thanks for the awesome clean browser interface and faster JavaScript though Google :)
which is totally what she said
... and I've switched to the advanced search page.
By displaying a search's ads onscreen a couple of seconds sooner, the frequency of users clicking on those ads could only go up.'
By displaying ads for shorter periods of time, click frequency will actually go down.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Google doesn't make money by selling searches to "end users", they make money by selling ads. So this new "functionality" is a surprise how?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What are these "ads" of which you speak? Sincerely, Just Another AdBlock user
:wq
I turned it off the moment it showed up. I know what I'm typing in and I want to search on the whole set of words. All google instant did was make it look like google going through some sort of fit.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Oh my god, Google wants to make money from it's advertising arm. This is shocking news, we should all boycott them now for someone who provides all services for free.
The instant feature was annoying and useless.
I turned it off as soon as I figured out how.
I don't want results before I even finish formulating my search request. It's distracting and confusing: a burst of visual noise while I'm trying to focus on what I'm typing in the search box (which I may decide to change as I'm typing it).
Why do I want to read results of a search that doesn't even represent my complete inquiry?
I actually didn't notice any more ads, and usually this doesn't actually make my searches any faster.
They made boggy shitty web apps faster, so who cares?
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in so far as I don't have to keep on hitting return.
It means that typing a few letters at the start of a search instead of having to type out the full phrase is sufficient sometimes to pull up the necessary results. It also makes it quicker and easier to tweak a search for slightly different keywords, or to browse through the auto-suggest searches.
Show me a company that isn't doing something to drive more revenue and I'll show you a company on its last legs.
I personally find Instant Search an awesome feature. However, it seems to conflict with an experimental search feature I love (namely, the keyboard shortcuts), so until Google introduces a version that supports both Instant and keyboard shortcuts, the latter feature wins.
its neat and annoying at the same time. as long as there's the option for turning it off its no problem. rather smart business decision.
I turned Instant off almost immediately. JavaScript speed was not the issue. Seeing a screenfull of "jumpiness" was just "loud" and obnoxious. I didn't like the aesthetics of it.
You still get hints in the text drop-down, even without Instant. Those are useful.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I dont know what their reasons for creating the instant search was. However, there are multiple times that while I was typing my intended search, the results I wanted appeared before instant search finished loading my completed query. Once the page loaded the last word I typed, my wanted result had disappeared. Who knows how many extra queries it would have taken me to find what I wanted. I was able to see about 3 searches take place while I typed. So I had 2 extra searches take place, one of which was not my intended search but it did find what I wanted. So I do find this new feature helpful.
I like google...but having spent ungodly amounts googling anything and everything: I know how to get the results I'm looking for. It's a cute trick but I think it'll be mostly lost on the slashdot crowd. The payoff will be for people who aren't good at understanding search methodology and work a computer consistently slowly...because you can actually see what makes your search get the desired results and what derails it.
As for google's intent, this strikes me as some developer with a little extra time doing something for shits & giggles. People liked it. So bam! I'm interested to see how it might be implemented into things like youtube.
I could also imagine some pretty cool functionality if implemented into the google code search.
Given the complete uselessness of the feature (as described in TFA), I always figured instant search as just being some bogus bling that Google can use to show how they're staying ahead of alternatives like Bing. Even phrases like "gone instant" reek of marketing slime.
The truth is that Bing, even with as few people around here that use it, really is working on keeping pace, or even surpassing Google in some areas. Microsoft's recent demos of their sliding and composited street-view, for example, were pretty impressive.
Hopefully Google has some real new features in store and hasn't fallen to relying on completely useless visual gimmicks to keep customers. Recently their work on improving search has been to make their text fields and buttons too big and to waste CPU cycles with stupid instant search. Whee.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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unlike before google instant lets me instantly not click on ads instead of having time to consciously not click on them.
I'm just curious how many of us who use Google on a regular basis has already turned this feature off. From having read the 20 or so posts here, it looks like a "vast" majority.
I don't even see this 'feature', nor the annoying and distracting 'fade in' effect launched a few months ago. NoScript handily takes care of that junk for me. And I've switched off suggestions in Google prefs, which means I don't have to look at what other people have searched for as I'm typing in my own search criteria. Now if I could only find a way to permanently switch off Web History - I refuse to open an account with Google, (aka 'Big Brother'), just to be able to disable this, ewpecially given that I don't trust Google to fully disable it even if they say they have done so. In my experience, when a company starts down the road of intrusiveness, invasion of privacy, and excessive 'eye candy', they've usually come to the end of their tenure as true innovators. I suspect that Google will slowly become less and less relevant over the next 5 to 10 years, just as Microsoft has in the previous decade or so.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
My take on Google's rationale is this; Now I'm a small-time Adwords advertiser in my day job, which gives me a little insight into how the ad empire runs.
For the uninitiated, Google sells the ads on a per click basis, with the price per click decided with a keyword auction. So, if one was in the business of renting out monkeys, one might bid for "monkey rental", "monkey hire", "hire monkeys in Smalltown" etc etc.
Popular keywords (eg "monkey hire") will cost more per click than less popular keywords (eg "short term monkey rental in Tinyplace"). Savvy advertisers might spread their bids to avoid overpaying for the highly competitive search terms and get some cheaper clicks in the 'long tail' of obscure searches.
This is where 'instant search' comes in. Say a user was seeking to rent a monkey and begins typing in Google- "Monkey.." with the intention of typing "Monkey leasing in Anothertown". Google suggests (and loads the results page for) "Monkey hire". User thinks 'okay' and uses the results page for "Monkey hire" to select a result or ad to click on. Repeat this process across X users. The result is that the proportion of users who 'search' for popular keyword combinations increases, as many will settle for whatever Google has suggested. The total number of ad clicks will stay roughly the same, as there will be the same number of people searching. The bid price per ad click will increase, as unpopular keywords become even less popular and users are nudged towards the most common variations. Google profits.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
If you have a customized Google homepage (an iGoogle page), you don't get the instant results. Most often, that's fine for me. As I've worked on others' PCs however, I've noticed the behavior and have found it useful. It doesn't always get it right with the first word, but once it does, I just stop typing and select my preferred link. Admittedly, it took me a number of uses to get myself to stop typing my search term, but once I felt comfortable that the results were comparable (or even identical) to the results I'd receive typing in a full string of terms, I adapted quickly.
I think most people can catch on, and it can save time. Only time will tell, however.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Wait...a company (Google) that makes a profit by selling stuff (advertisements) has introduced a technology that enables them to sell more ads? Unpossible!
I'm surprised people still type in www.google.com anymore. All of my google searches are through the address bar, in which case, Google Instant has little impact on me.
and typically the search results aren't relevant until I've finished my search phrase.
"... So money seemed to be the prime motivator ..."
And here I thought they were just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts!
I use Google less and less. Mostly type where I need to go by url now. The "instant" crap is never close to what I want and just a way for Google to show who paid the biggest bribe.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I try to avoid using it. I haven't quite gone to shut it off, but I find it quite like a little brother: it interrupts, thinking that it knows what you're saying before you finish. Only in this case, it knows what you're typing. And just like the little brother, it's wrong a majority of the time. I'm sure that--like the little brother--I'll eventually say "shut up and let me finish", and turn the feature off; especially if it comes to the Chrome Omnibar.
I don't think it's available in Canada yet, even after visiting www.google.com/instant/ and clicking "Try it now" all I get is the drop down box like with google suggest... Any Canadian Slashdoters given this a shot yet?
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
Apple is the king of media events, and is also the king of making a big deal out of something small. To me, Google voice in Gmail was far more significant world wide than Google instant, so where was the major media event for that? All these great tools and then you go make a big deal about Google instant? It never added up for me. It seemed like they were trying to take a page from the Steve Job's book of marketing, but to what end?
And of course article has to hit me with the giant "duh" hammer. Google is trying to figure out a balance between annoying users and getting as many ads out there as possible. So you type in "New York" on the way to "New York metropolitian opera" and you get ads served up about new york. Then New York Metro, then New York Metropolitian. Each time, there's a small chance something might catch your eye. Targeted ads, quietly slipped in, hoping you'll notice as you search and maybe click on them. Millions of people world wide use Google. Most of them will not click on ads, but some will, and that's all Google needs is for some people to click the ads.
The media event was more a practice event to notify investors and ad buyers, not the public at large. Get the word out to people who buy and sell and have money. And practice doing this like Steve-o does, in order to compete with his RDF. Steve has been pushing iAds lately and explaining how iAd can reach millions of iOS devices. Gotta start getting the word out on Googleriffic features that make money.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I find Instant not only cumbersome, but at least in the workplace downright disruptive. It will automatically display hits even if not remotely related to what you're searching for, because you goddamned haven't finished typing yet.
Just try "is it wrong" in a Google search box and see what it loads.
Now imagine you were at work and your boss was looking at your screen. You'd have some explaining to do on why you're searching for ways to commit incest.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
There's already an effect by which Google Trends and Google Suggest to drive traffic to a popular search phrase. This may make it worse.
Google Suggest "suggestions" are based, not on Google search results, but on Google Trends, the most popular searches in the last hour or so. Thus, if a phrase with likely first few letters gets near the top of Google Trends momentarily, it appears in the search boxes of large numbers of users, many of whom just pick top phrase. That's how long, unlikely phrases make it to the top of Google Trends.
I had a program tracking Google Trends for a while. The Trends system is clearly being spammed, as a form of "search engine optimization". Occasionally, an unlikely phrase which clearly aims the user at a specific site will surface. The life cycle of such a spam is about 45 minutes.
Adding command completion to Google's search box should accelerate this effect.
"Did company add feature to product to make more money?" Google is a corporation with a duty to its shareholders to try and increase profits. If they release a function to their search engine that both increases its utility to users and lets Google generate more revenue: what's the problem and why is it newsworthy?
For the record I really like the instant search. Generally I don't get my search terms right the first time. The quick feedback to search terms is really nice.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
I simply love noscript.
I did not even notice this new feature thanks to it (yes google is not allowed to run scripts on my browser by default).
Does anyone actually click on ads?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
This is an entire slashdot discussion filled with people who apparently have no idea that Firefox has a "Google Search Bar!" embedded in the upper right hand corner. Or that chrome's address bar is in fact a "Google Search Bar!" also. If you're using your browser correctly, you shouldn't even run in to instant. Therefore, it's completely useless. Come on guys, back me up here, you're starting to scare me.
I find it's pretty useful on multi word searches. I get instant feedback on whether it's looking like my search will return the sort of results I'm looking for. I find it's mostly helpful with tech support type searches where one word doesn't return good results, but a synonym does.
I find the argument that "instant search" may help people rather specious. We've seen numerous evidence that people don't multitask well - if you try to view search results as you type, it just interferes with your ability to type quickly (and this was my experience with "instant" as well). So most of the time I just tuned it out; when I noticed it at all, it mostly was just a "oh look, it's returning results for an incomplete set of terms" sort of thing that was not useful at all.
It also bugged me that using "instant" reset my search list to 10 items instead of my preferred 100. It's true that, when searching for some specific page, the one I want is usually right at the top of the list. But just this weekend I was searching for info related to one aspect of x264 encoding, and I knew I wanted to see a lot of results so I could scan through and compare multiple takes on it. For me, anyway, this sort of thing works better with the longer, single-page list of results from Google.
#DeleteChrome
My idea of efficiency is getting 100 results per page. I often need to look at more than the first ten results to find what I'm looking for, and if I'm really researching something I make go through several pages of 100 results each.
I wanted to give it Google Instant a fair try, but gave up when I found that there seems to be no way to keep my preference for 100 results per page while using Google Instant. Merely turning on Google Instant cuts the number of results down to ten. Worse yet, if you then turn it on, your results per page remains at ten for regular searches.
Needing to click five, ten, fifteen times is a dealbreaker for me.
I view this with alarm. Google, which used to be so clean, chaste, and functional, is going all glitzy. I can't stand their new image search, in which it is difficult to scroll through results because mousing over any thumbnail, even accidentally, cause it to zoom out... into some poorly-defined Java-jived windoid in which right-clicking "Copy image" does not work reliably.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Another vote here for the minority. I like being able to quickly narrow my search on the spot--to this end I found I began ordering my search terms before I typed them in, e.g.:
susanville food breakfast best bacon
I use Chrome's URL field to do Google searches all the time, and find I miss instant when I'm typing up there.
I sometimes find Google Instant useful, same as with history-based completion in the URL bar of Firefox. But when it's not useful it's easy to ignore and doesn't seem to bog things down any (at least I'm not noticing it). As for the ads, when I'm looking to buy what I'm searching for they're often relevant to my search (and thus useful), and when I'm not they're easy to ignore. A lot of other search/advertising engines seem to get the first bit but ignore the second part about getting out of the way. No, scratch that, they get the second part but consider doing it to be an explicit thing to be avoided. Which I think is why Google's so popular and so profitable.
If they make the first or second time you hit Tab take you to the first result, it might have made things faster, as you could start the page loading without having to transition your hand to your mouse (and back to the keyboard, if the next site has a logon.) As it is now, you have to hit Tab 16 times to highlight the first result, the now-unnecessary search button being one of them. The tab order includes the links to all of their other products before getting to the search results, as it is on their regular search, but at least the old one had the "I'm feeling Lucky" button for obvious searches (e.g. "Wiki" Tab Tab Enter takes you to Wikipedia.)
This sentence no verb.
My reaction to it was the same as with the AwesomeBar:
First I loathed it. It makes the input box to jump while the text is being typed. It also makes it very hard to focus on typing while a multitude of information is flashing on the screen at the same time. That effect increases if you are a fast touch typist.
But I was too lazy to disable it, so I didn't. I then started (without even noticing) to adapt the way I use it and it proved itself to be much easier: I start typing whatever I'm searching and pause for just a second to inspect the suggestions google makes. More often than not, I can simply stop typing because the search result is already what I'm looking for.
In the few cases it is not, I finish typing and use it "the old way", pressing enter to retrieve the search results.
I don't mind that Instant Search might be motivated by Google's self-interest. I don't mind that it may place technological burdens on the browser--you can always turn it off. I don't mind that not everyone will necessarily like it.
What I mind is that it is basically tasteless. It's mostly bling, and Google used to be so tasteful.
And what I mind even more is the "negative option" feature of it. For years, Google has been introducing new features on an opt-in basis, e.g. by showing them first in Google Labs. Gmail was originally invitation only!--and people have been opting in willlingly because the new features were obviously valuable. This is the first time they pushed something on me without my prior consent. That's bad.
And come to think of it, they introduced it with an extremely intrusive animated thingy--the Google "balls"--which were presented without any explanation. That's also a new departure, and a bad precedent.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
...it strikes me as yet another reason to disable Javascript on Google.
I sometimes feel like I am one of the only people who like this feature. I don't know if it has something to do with how quickly I process information or what, but I'm actually enjoying it. Granted, I don't need to use it every time because I generally know exactly what I'm looking for and what terms to use, but I think it's great when I'm researching something and I'm not sure what I need to look for. It's not like I have to look at what I'm typing, so instead I'm able to look at the web pages as they come up and glean information from the summaries. If I see one that looks promising, even if I've kept typing and it moves or goes away, I've already scanned the info I need and can add that in as I type to narrow it down further.
In fact I'm beginning to find it more annoying to search with the feature *off* because it means I have to hit enter to search for something, look at the results, say "Nope, not what I needed," and type in something else and hit enter again.
Of course, I've always been extremely fast at skimming and pulling out key words and phrases, and I've been told I read faster than most. I'm sure that makes a big difference; many of my friends who are not fast readers say they dislike it because they have to actually stop and read the results after each word they enter, whereas I don't have that problem.
A corporation in America did something... for... .... MONEY!??! I don't believe this!
Since ctrl+k gets me right to the search box in FF, I never go to the google home page. And even if I log out of my google account it still routes me to igoogle anyway. When they did that funky logo follows the mouse thing a while back, I actually had to go to google.co.uk to see it. That was easier then blasting the cookies anyway.
I did actually try this out though. I'm a fast enough typist that it doesn't matter. And I am *not* that fast. I can see if you are someone who types with an index finger one character every few seconds then maybe it will show you results before you are done typing.
I've gotten used to the laggy feeling and jumpiness but what I can't stand is that after being trained to not have to enter a query it sometimes wipes out the final results and tells me I have to hit enter. WTF?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
If you're a "True Nerd" (TM)** then you'd know that the colloquialism "boxen" was derived from another colloquialism "VAXen" which came from the olden days (1970's - 1980's, even into the 90's) of computer science when Digital Equipment Corporation still existed and made a line of minicomputer called the "VAX". If you had more than one VAX system, the plural became known as "VAXen", derived from Old English use of the suffix "-en" tacked onto a noun to denote plural. This name came to be due to the fact that virtually all VAX sysadmins back in those days were mostly a bunch of goofy wierdos who still lived in their mothers' basements well into their 40's, never got laid, and seemed to live perpetually in a fantasy world composed solely of Renaissance Fairs.
NoScript prevents the automatic listing of stuff, making Google act like it's supposed to.
There was only one time in the world when I accidentally had Google temporarily whitelisted... I happened to be doing a search for the UNIX 'tee' command. You can imagine what showed up, and you can imagine why I hated it.
I don't like it, not because of the results while I type, but because it will act like I pressed "I feel lucky" when I use the auto-complete options. Also if i see a phrase I want to search for instead in one of the results of my queries, I am forced to either copy-paste it out or to memorize how it is spelled instead of typing what I am reading on the screen.
Web developers REALLY love their javascript, even when serving only static data. So is it surprizing that they would like to "spice up" the "boring" google search results page? Even the page with the article on it has nothing interesting except article text, and yet it insists on popping up a dialog box reminding me that my browser (elinks) is "too old", as if whatever they are doing with their useless scripts and graphics can possibly be of interest to me.
Or Chrome/Safari/etc.
I never use the actual www page, unless I'm refining my results in which case, instant isn't that annoying.
I also now have migrated to domain-specific searches outside of Google (ie, code searches on code-specific sites like stackoverflow, etc)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I found it useful last week. I was doing a search on the model number of the water heater in my house, looking for a replacement part. There were no search results for the full model number, but when I hit the backspace button a couple times in the Google Instant search, I was able to find some search results for a model that was pretty close to the same one in my house. As it turned out, they were close enough and I was able to find the replacement parts I needed.
include $sig;
1;
Of course not silly. They did it to inflate their Ads _AND_ their Comscore rankings.
So much for meaningful metrics.
I turned it off as soon as I possibly could. I use Google A LOT. I don't need it messing with what I think is the query I feel will get me the best results. I ESPECIALLY would not want it doing this on my mobile phone chewing up my data allowance.
But I hate your stupid instant feature and I'm too lazy to disable it, so I'll probably just start using your competitors because i find yours annoying.
This always happens. Everyone in the world except me is suffering from a mass google induced hallucination.
I see no instant searches on google.com. Lets click "more" -> "even more". Nothing about instant. Settings, preferences, google account settings, search features... nope nope nope.
WTH are you hippies talking about?
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
what?
google tool bar has done this for Aaaaaaagggeeessss! (with out the ads) what's the fuss about?
Slashdot has become the platform for more and more commercial interests.
This whole post seems to be part of a F.U.D (fear, uncertainty, doubt) strategy taken by Google opponents (such as Microsoft).
Instead of trying to compete on a technical level, they try to say the competition is 'stupid'. Its like I would say baseball is 'stupid' if I can't hit the ball.
As in most F.U.D campaigns, the originators and their motives are disguised and blurred.
If anyone can match Google on search and search speed - go ahead - and I will probably use your service, if the price is not too high.
Google Instant is for those who type slow. I have disabled it.
> Google's traffic monitors didn't even blink at the extra data being sent across
My browser, on the other hand, blinks like crazy. Thank goodness for NoScript and the in-browser search option.
Wake me up when instant search will give me rearch results of all in that very same moment emerged information.
All the posts complaining about this surprised me, mainly because I'm surprised that anyone uses the google search page. Don't pretty much all browsers have a search field? I type my search in there, hit enter, and see the results.
For me, "http://google.com" is a connectivity diagnostic tool, not a search tool.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This new mis-feature actually slows me down. I type one character and the page changes. Google appears to be designing using the "Principle of Greatest Surprise". How this got past any user testing is beyond me.
Google is about to be banned from using Javascript on my machine. (Thanks to Firefox and Configurable Security Policies...)
They seem bent on making the best search engine into the worst. I don't need sidebars, I don't need pictures on the front page, I don't need "instant" searches (which, as I said, are _slower_ for me than before). Forget "don't be evil"; try "don't get in the way".
I wanted to see my old searches instead of Google's auto-suggest. I turned off instant search but couldn't turn off the auto-suggest (or whatever they call it), so I switched to Bing.
It's been several days and I haven't been hit by lightning yet.
I've actually been typing my searches into notepad and then copying them in for some time now (not a joke, honest truth). I don't like anything that sees my typing real time- the metrics on that are far more frightening and revealing than anything I might type into google. This is biometric identification, whether you want to admit it or not, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I do a lot of SEO/SEM and have some concerns. As a user, I LOATHE google instant. It took 5 tries to get my 100 results/page back, and every time I clear my cookies I have to start over. Questions about PPC impact:
1. If I bid on the phrase 'antique doorknobs' and someone starts typing in 'antique hair styles', maybe my ad shows up for a second before they're done typing. If my ad's 2 second display counts as an impression, my clickthrough rate could suffer and therefore my quality score and my bids would be forced up. Not to mention it's just more junk data messing up the real numbers.
2. Can advertisers opt out of this program? I only want my ads to display AFTER the user has typed in what they want.
3. Google does a number of things that have the effect of driving people to use more popular versions of keywords - fighting the long tail. Google suggest will 'helpfully' auto-complete your search queries with the most popular version. Sometimes this will help the user. Most of the time, users will be driven to use the most popular, most competitive, and costliest keywords possible. This drives up ad revenue and incites more competition for the most expensive keywords - a definite money maker for Google.
"hard work often pays off over time, but laziness always pays off now."
Yes. This is a great feature.
I find it very useful as a multipurpose information bar now. I love the fact that I can get pictures just by adding the words "picture" or "photo" to the end of the text on my searchbar without having to click search.
It really is truly an excellent feature and works real fast for me... but also is easy to shut off for those who do not like change in their lives.
But the poster seems to miss the value to google. I really don't care if google makes more or less money off of this feature. It isn't going to effect whether I use it or not. Fact is: it IS WAY BETTER.
Besides... I think this is more about making money by providing the best service. ie: better service = more users = more money = obviously.
Nice. Wish I had mod points. Now where did I put all of my oxen?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
if you dont know what you need to search for exactly.
If you have a conceptual target, but you arent sure what are the best keywords to use, its Really, Really good. I found a few things I was looking for, that I probably wouldnt have been able to find otherwise.
If on the other hand, you already know what you are looking for, and know reasonable keywords to get it, then its a waste of time.
"Do you find Google Instant to be useful in any way, or does it strike you as just more ad gravity for your mouse?"
I find it extraordinarily annoying, unnecessary, a waste of CPU and bandwidth, and turned it off almost immediately. If that answers the question :)
I like Google as my search engine of choice when it is fast, simple, and accurate. I do not want animation. I do not want backgrounds. I do not want "fading in and out". I do not want video game logos. I do not want it to "hook into" additional "services". I do not want auto completion. Just call me conservative.
that must be why because I don't see any other uses (I disabled it)
it should be opt-in, just like the search box suggestions in Firefox.
it is not "green"
Google has a front page?
Sincerely,
A keyword search user
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Yes. Next question.
Also, you can pay per click or per view with Google Ads. If you pay for views and the ad is displayed for three seconds or more, you pay.
Google users who care enough to post on the Google Help Forums are up in arms about the new Google Instant setup.
Not because they like or hate Google Instant, but because when Google activated Google Instant, they removed the ability to turn off AutoComplete in the search box. Because of this, the knowledgeable Google users are forced to use the lowest-common-denominator version of the Google search box.
Some of the recommendations to get around Google's forcefeeding of unnecessary AutoComplete? (a) add &complete=0 to the Google URL, (b) use Elmer Fudd, (c) a few other annoying workarounds that shouldn't be required when the system worked fine before, (d) use a different search engine
All we want is for Google to add the "turn off Autocomplete" back to the Google Search Settings screen. Why is this so difficult a request to handle?
I still love firefox's ability to go "google " in the address bar and don't see me moving away from that any time soon! :)
It's not about the traditional ads. If you type "a" during a live search the first result (at the time of this writing) is "amazon.com". However, if you type "a" and then hit the search button (not a live search) you get "A - Wikipedia". If you live search "b" you get "best buy". If you manually search "b" you get "4chan - Wikipedia". So it appears that they have sold portions of the alphabet to companies. I wonder how much one pays to own "a" in live search? How many people will begin to type something starting with "a" and then get distracted and go "oooh, shiny objects on amazon" [click].
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Google search engine is useful but the ads sometimes is kinda annoying.
but tats the way google make money.