By Joel Black on 11/10/2010
Google has shook things up again. They built on the instant search feature, now adding previews. I have only used this feature for about an hour, but am loving it so far. It feels so much more intuitive to me that I can hover over the magnifying glass and see a quick preview of the homepage. Since I am a visual person, I can make a decision if I want to visit the site without even clicking on it. This will save me a ton of time.
On the other hand, design will now make a big impact if you even get clicked or not. How will this effect SEO and the current mindset that content is more important than design. It seems to me that now both may be just as important. You will always need great, engaging content, but now if a visual comes before a reader actually reads anything on the page, your going to need a design that is easy on the eyes as well. And one other thing I would like to mention here, Flash is not shown in the preview. And you know me, I am the anti-Flash!
How do you think the new Google instant preview will change the scope of search?