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Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

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Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

#104
post #41

Thank God. This feature has been the bane of my Google existence. I often want to hit backspace to go back a page, but because their search bar steals my focus, I instead remove a letter or two and perform a search again. I have never, not once, found this feature to be useful. Who doesn't type faster than they can read a page of results?

Removal of instant shouldn't change the behavior of the search bar's focusing. I haven't noticed what your'e talking about, though.

Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

#105

>Google Instant launched in 2010 under the leadership of Marissa Mayer. Mayer called this change a “fundamental shift in search”.... So Mayer does it again, lol. My favorite thing is how this lady was praised as some sort of genius for managing the Google search page - as if that page is some marvel of modern engineering and not just a webpage with and input and no background.

Hm, let's not have personal attacks here, especially for a topic on which you do not have any personal experience. Having worked on Google Search during this period, I can say definitively that your comment is mostly incorrect. Features at Google are generally bottom-up driven. Mayer was in many ways acting as a gatekeeper to keep some of the crazier stuff from harming the experience or brand.

If I'm attacking anything, it's her record as a leader. We can agree to disagree on that, but I see nothing personal in my comment.

Secondly, the heart of my comment is how some people are raised up to insane heights on mediocre achievements. Even if she was a great "gatekeeper" as you say, there's really nothing in that skill that sounds particularly impressive and certainly not worth the obscene amounts of money and praised heaped upon her up until her public fall from grace.

And while I'm at it I suppose I should chime in on Instant - always seemed like a waste of resources to me. What is so hard about hitting Enter? Personally it always annoyed me. Obviously many people will disagree with me but when I found out that one of the most annoying changes to google search had been pushed hard by Mayer I couldn't help but comment.

Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I usually will start my Google searches in the Omnibox, then use the search bar on the page when I needed to find something new. In those use cases, instant is incredibly useful.

Man, do I hate the Omnibox with a passion. I wouldn't care so much if it wasn't the default.

Why don't you like it?

Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

#107
post #41

Thank God. This feature has been the bane of my Google existence. I often want to hit backspace to go back a page, but because their search bar steals my focus, I instead remove a letter or two and perform a search again. I have never, not once, found this feature to be useful. Who doesn't type faster than they can read a page of results?

Removal of instant shouldn't change the behavior of the search bar's focusing. I haven't noticed what your'e talking about, though.

They have appeared to have implemented disabling instant search by simply reverting all post-instant search antifeatures:

No instant search

No steal focus on result page (and thus, no breaking backspace)

No overriding arrow key scroll into weird blue-arrow modal UI

Basically 2010 era google, all at one stroke.

The result quality is still kind of meh though.

Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

#108

The most annoying part is still there -- of the home page morphing into the search results page as soon as text is typed. It is a totally nonsensical design. 1) Type stuff into google.com 2) Delete all the text You are now on a totally empty results page. Why is this a sensible design?

Do people frequently use the Google Homepage for search? I've always just used the address / search bar via Ctrl+K shortcuts for instant searching. Why waste time going to google.com directly?

Re: Google Has Dropped Google Instant Search

#109
post #13

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 t…

I 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.
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