Google Instant Previews

Look different in Webmaster Tools vs. search

[shallow]

In Webmaster Tools, Google now lets you see Instant Previews of your site (under Labs). They say if the Preview "looks different from what users see, it could indicate Google is having difficulty crawling your page."

The preview generated within Webmaster Tools looks much worse than when I do an actual Google search and click the magnifying glass icon.

In WMT few, if any, graphics display on a page. But when I search for my site via Google, the only things that don't show are ads, such as Adsense and Amazon, the graphics do appear (at least in my browser).

Is this worth fussing with?

[Propools]

In an article at SEL [searchengineland.com], I read about the preview.
It's nice that Google is doing the Preview.

I think in the end, it will span the way for greater user satisfaction with search results as the concept of Google’s doing this seems to be dead-spot on for several reasons but it will definately change the way things are done.

In reading the above article, I have the following thoughts and questions about the preview feature:

1. I wonder if there’s a <tag> we can use to have Google use “this” as the preview display.
   
2. Preview may certainly reduce the bounce rate
3. In reducing the bounce rate, it may also reduce Adwords charges, so is Google cutting it’s revenue stream? Or are they willing to do this in an effort to have better search results?
   
4. Do we get a metric measurement in our Google WMT that shows the # of clicks from the preview tool?
   
5. How do you preview on a mobile device?

[Samizdata]

I wonder if there’s a <tag> we can use to have Google use “this” as the preview display

It is technically simple for webmasters to serve their own visual preview.

Unfortunately, doing so may get your site banned from the Google SERPs.

...

[londrum]

has anyone worked out how you can have a preview, whilst still keeping your images out of their index?

as far as i can tell, if you dont want your images to appear in the serps then your preview ends up with big ugly blank spaces.

[Propools]

londrum,
I would think that the image displayed by the _magnifying is more of an elongated screen shot.
So, this makes me wonder if there will be a new directive for robots.txt to "Don't Screen Shot Me Bro". lol

[londrum]

...it just seems like a clever way of forcing webmasters to open up their sites to googlebot

[shallow]

In an article at SEL [searchengineland.com], I read about the preview.
It's nice that Google is doing the Preview.

The article says: "They can read snippets of text from the actual page to see how closely it relates to the text of the ad."

That would be nice if it were true. I've clicked on the magnifying glass for several of my pages. The snippet is, more often than not, the actual copy from the AdSense leaderboard ad running at the top of the page, or the crumbs and/or the author's byline.

So, Google want's use to now redesigned our sites to fit their Instant Previews?!

[lucy24]

Their thread's longer than yours.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[shallow]

Thanks for the link lucy24.