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Google Instant Search Released

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Re: Google Instant Search Released

#201

Post by [deleted] »

kwamenum86 wrote: post #169
nanairo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But you'll have to agree that such argument have a diminishing marginal return pattern. 500ms vs. 250ms may be great, but what about 100ms vs. 50ms? Once you reach the point my brain is the bottleneck, what's the point? On the other hand it could be distracting to get something happening in the screen while you are thinking the best way to form your query. Usually when I am about to ask someone a question and t…

Experiments have shown that 100 Ms is the threshold.

[deleted]

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#202

Post by peterwwillis »

andreyf wrote: post #161
peterwwillis wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's funny you bring this up because we were just discussing site performance at work today. what i took away from it is this: speed is mostly relevant when there's a competing product providing similar value and you risk losing business due to inferior user experience. if google were far better than their competitors at providing what users want (relevant search results they don't have to dig through) they could tak…

yes, 500ms can seem like an awful lot when you come from a world of 250ms. but if the results returned from the 500ms are significantly better, you bet your ass users will sit through double the time to get better, more reliable results. Are you sure?

IANASEOE, YMMV, HBD, ETC. but for us, yes. the site of my company was balls slow yet managed amazing feats of capitalism, mostly due to a faithful userbase in the face of faster and cheaper alternative sites. value won out.

an example: Steam, the game delivery system, takes longer to deliver and properly execute games than it takes to buy one from the store, install it and run it. but you get more value from steam so people sit through hours or nights/days worth of downloading to run its games.

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#203

Post by uxp »

dedward wrote: post #181
edanm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't need search results that update live as I type. I need to find what I'm looking for." You need to find what you're looking for faster. For you, that only means more relevant results, since (this is a guess) you're a quick typist. For slower typists, this kind of instant search could save a lot more than 500ms. It can save them 30 seconds, maybe even a minute. It might also help teach people how to search. Th…

Even for fast typists - speed and response time affects your perception of the site subconsciously. The faster and more realtime it seems the more you are going to like it, even if you aren't sure why, or don't even think about it. You may not even realize why if asked why you like it better - but the statistics and studies are there and are solid - so this is likely a very good move on google's part.

The first few searches I queried google for this morning didn't have this instantaneous result feature. This afternoon, it did, but I didn't notice it until I actually became frustrated when I would change a query and click "search", and the results didn't change. It took me a minute to actually notice how the results were dynamically changing under me.

It may take a day or more to get used to, but it really does speed up the workflow.

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#204

Post by jyothi »

kwamenum86 wrote: post #169
nanairo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But you'll have to agree that such argument have a diminishing marginal return pattern. 500ms vs. 250ms may be great, but what about 100ms vs. 50ms? Once you reach the point my brain is the bottleneck, what's the point? On the other hand it could be distracting to get something happening in the screen while you are thinking the best way to form your query. Usually when I am about to ask someone a question and t…

Experiments have shown that 100 Ms is the threshold.

I think speed beyond a point doesn't add much to the experience. One would spend at least 2-5 seconds to check out the results and minutes to find the right article, few milliseconds would not matter.

Instead if they return 'good results' in 1000 milliseconds also I would continue to use them.

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#205

Post by sashthebash »

The real question is... will this increase or decrease Google's revenue through Adwords on the result pages?

They will for sure show more ads, maybe making chances higher for a user to click an ad, but at least for me, after trying it out a bit, it seems like I focus more on the results themselves when typing, as they change all the time, without giving attention to the ads.

And as already mentioned, long tail searches might be used less often, so you cannot buy cheap uncompetitive ads to drive traffic to your site, you have to use the big keywords that are suggested.

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#207

Post by gojomo »

nostrademons wrote: post #167
sunir wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google tried this. It was called SearchWiki. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-searc...

Or was called SearchWiki. It turned out that nobody liked or used it, so it was removed.

I liked the small satisfaction I got from 'X'-ing out spammy sites!

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#208

Post by gojomo »

EricBurnett wrote: post #196
fbnt wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probability of some old man clicking one of the four different links kindly proposed on the top of the page by Google while he's typing his search query is higher than the probability of him clicking the only ad shown to him with the old search technique. I guess.

Even if that were true, then the value of clicks would decrease, prices would drop, and a new balance would be achieved.

But in the weeks or months before bidding behavior adjusts downward -- pure gravy for Google!

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#209

Post by bad_user »

peterwwillis wrote: post #159
neilk wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own perception of why you switched may be partially in error. Google has done a lot of research to show that speed matters quite a lot to users. When results appear in less than 250ms the user is much more satisfied than even 500ms. Anything less than a quarter of a second is thought of as "instantaneous" and the user starts thinking of it very differently. Here, they are taking it down to less than 100ms, which…

it's funny you bring this up because we were just discussing site performance at work today. what i took away from it is this: speed is mostly relevant when there's a competing product providing similar value and you risk losing business due to inferior user experience. if google were far better than their competitors at providing what users want (relevant search results they don't have to dig through) they could tak…

> what i took away from it is this: speed is mostly relevant when there's a competing product providing similar value and you risk losing business due to inferior user experience

Even if you don't have competition, you leave the door wide open if requests take 5 seconds.

There's also indirect competition ... like a lot of people type the name of the service they want directly into Google's search box ... a practice which would stop if it took 5 seconds, because accessing your local bookmarks would be faster.

Re: Google Instant Search Released

#210

Post by wikyd »

vaksel wrote: post #150

I think this little change is going to fundamentally change the internet landscape. a) no more long tail keywords. those people will see an answer before they get to the part of the phrase that makes it longtail(so if you ranked for that 5 term keyword...too bad). i.e. if you rank for "best auto insurance companies", you've now lost all your business to those who rank for "best auto insurance" b) much faster searchin…

I think the opposite will happen for (a). There are still a ton of users who are not very good at using search engines and only do one or two word queries. Suggestions-as-you-type will teach these users how to search more effectively, I think (esp. given your point (b)).
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