Google Testing Instant Search Feature 101
adeelarshad82 writes "According to a recently released video, Google is currently testing an 'instant search' feature that changes search results as you type. The feature was first spotted over the weekend. At the moment Instant Search seems to be implemented on very few accounts. A Google spokesman could not confirm or deny the accuracy of the video saying that at any given moment Google is running 50 to 200 experiments."
Incremental find (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Um, just doing a reality check here... But this feature has been available to me for the last several months at least. Why is everyone acting like this is new? Last I checked, the car I drive isn't a delorean...
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Whoops, I missed the part where it updates the screen.
All right... (Score:2)
The video included in TFA looks nice, though not revolutionary. My first thought was that it would probably be easy enough to implement a client-side version of it -- basically refresh the search page every so often while the user is manipulating the query. Of course you'd have to do it in an AJAXy fashion so as not to interrupt the typing in the input field, which might be difficult. That requirement could be dropped if the user enters the query within the browser UI -- come to think of it, it's fairly rar
Depends on how it works (Score:2)
Watch the video, it looks really interesting. I think it would be really useful during those times when you're not getting the results you anticipated.
I think it'll be more popular than Wave (okay, that was a low blow).
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I see absolutely no point in this. While it looks cool, why would I want to see results for "chee", "cheese" or "cheese and b" when I'm searching for "cheese and biscuits"?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Beer. Yes, beer. I'm not even a beer lover, but a nice cold brew now and then is good. Screw the Mac people. Sure, I love a good Scotch whiskey - and I tolerate some wines alright. But beer. Hot summer day, you're so hot you just want to hide under a rock because that's the only shade in sight. You're MELTING - and puddling up in the bottom of your boots. Water sounds good - but someone offers you an ICE COLD BEER!! To hell with the water - grab the beer, and chug half of it down, then roll that co
Re: (Score:2)
What Mac people don't like beer now? What sort of bizarre cult is Jobs running over there?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While I love a good mac and cheese, cheese and beer would be awesome. How about mac, cheese AND beer?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You know what, forget the mac and cheese. And the beer. And the blackjack! ...
Ah, screw the whole thing.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Searching for Dickens could also provide some... undesirable side effects. Especially considering Google's habit of putting pictures in normal search results.
Instant Typo Heaven (Score:1, Funny)
Searching for "vague" could also provide some... interesting results, especially considering how close "u" and "i" are. For those of you who are having this read out to you, I was referring to the letters "u" and "i" on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
I wonder if searching for information on God would result in finding giddy girls as a result of a typo.
Clearly, they should name this feature ITH - "Instant Typo Heaven".
Re: (Score:2)
The God Typo would probably produce GI Joe.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just try explaining to the cyber police that you were just starting to type in a search for "child portraiture studios" when all of those naughty pictures showed up on your computer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google doesn't auto-complete anything pornographic. They wont stop you from searching or alter the results but you wont be seeing a phallus, when searching for Dick Smith's Electronics.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
The instant search is not directly based on what you type, it is based on the suggestions google gives you.
As you type "chee", you will see the results for "cheesecake", and for "cheese and b" you will have the results for "cheese and burger society".
Re: (Score:2)
Given the hilarity of some of the Google autosuggests, this could make using Google a lot more fun!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I see absolutely no point in this. While it looks cool, why would I want to see results for "chee", "cheese" or "cheese and b" when I'm searching for "cheese and biscuits"?
From the point of view of a website looking for hits, there's more opportunity to come up in a search result. Joe's Cheese Emporium might not come up when you search for "cheese and biscuits", but it could come up as you typed out your search and had just "cheese" in there. This is a good thing if you're running a website.
From the point of view of a user searching for information, you never know exactly what search terms are going to be relevant. Maybe I'm being too specific in my search terms and not ge
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
yeah ... what about the word "Analysis"
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget "assassin," "titillation," "pussywillow," "Dick Cheney," "thick hot cumulonimbus clouds," ...
Re: (Score:1)
I see absolutely no point in this. While it looks cool, why would I want to see results for "chee", "cheese" or "cheese and b" when I'm searching for "cheese and biscuits"?
I quite often find myself trying several slightly different search terms when I'm looking for something very specific. The video in TFA is just a proof-of-concept, a more practical use would be switching out/adding/removing a search term or two to get different results. All this without hitting the enter key every time (and maybe accidentally deleting the whole query because the textbox.text gets selected). It's a convenience thing.
Re: (Score:2)
why would I want to see results for "chee", "cheese" or "cheese and b"
So don't look at the results while you type. That doesn't make the feature less worthwhile
Re: (Score:2)
There could be a delay on it so that it only runs the search after you stop typing for a certain period of time. So if you're searching for "cheese and biscuits", it won't return results for "c", "ch", "che", etc. But if you pause after "cheese", you'll get some search results. After you add " and biscuits", the results will update for the new query. Depending on how Google implements this, it could be very cool.
It has a name (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called incremental search and was introduced in the emacs text editor decades ago.
A better invention would be to return relevant search results.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Yes, we all know emacs did it first.
Relevant: http://xkcd.com/378/
Re:It has a name (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, because incremental search on a text editor and on a search engine are the exact same thing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
emacs http://*
and then wait a really long time.
Fix Image Search first!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Disable javascript on images.google.com/* ?
Re:Fix Image Search first!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not actually load the page they are on and attach a little bit of code to stick the image over-top. if you click the x hide everything instantly. Why reload the whole god damn page?
Re: (Score:1)
New image search is a nice improvement. BUT the new links you get aren't as nice. Somehow they seem slower loading for me.
Why not actually load the page they are on and attach a little bit of code to stick the image over-top. if you click the x hide everything instantly. Why reload the whole god damn page?
I don't see how that could possibly work, how could Google "run a little bit of code" on someone else's website? Am I missing something?
On the other hand just loading the page containing the image straight away, with no box, would be preferable to the current system.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with this, it is not as nice. Maybe a setting to use the old one, since I don't want to disable all javascript.
A useful feature (Score:3, Insightful)
Currently, many people rely on the word-completion from the search bar. For instance, one prefers to chose what comes from the propositions, since the results will be more numerous.
With this new feature one can adapt in real time the search pattern to converge towards the desired results.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally saw this (Score:5, Interesting)
You know how when you normally type in things, Google "suggests" what you might be looking for? And how, sometimes, those searches are, shall we say, "interesting" to say the least, or "NSFW" or just plain old weird? (For instance, try typing in "How do I" or "how do you" and see the odd results that occur... the ones I currently see are "get pregnant" and "start selling weed").
Now, imagine having the results of those show up as you're trying to search for something else entirely.
Frustrating, to say the least, and embarrassing or potentially job-threatening on some of those more risque searches.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense
If your job is so precarious, you might as well start looking for another employer. The best spy software isn't going to record what pops up in that window
I've been using this for a while now. I tried and saw the items you suggest 'get pregnant' etc among many other possibilities. These results come and go as you type and change almost instantly. It would take a sharp eye to notice 'how do i start selling weed' in that flurry. I fail to see how the process impairs your activities.
It's easy to ignore
In other news.. (Score:1)
There is some guy saying developers should not have access to production servers..
It seems Google doesn't give a damn to that!!
As for orkut, I've seen bugs being fixed directly by the developer on the production server also. (Upon personal contact
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. My wife and I are in different countries right now and we have been making use of google latitude and calendars to keep us coordinated with the stuff we both need to get done. Google tools are useful but buggy. They give the impression that development stopped when they became useful and that nobody sees the need for improvement.
In depth search (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish they'd do the opposite. Admittedly getting results for many searches in 1.342 seconds is cool but occasionally I'd prefer much more specific results even if it takes minutes or longer. If they had a service that charged a few $/month that allowed for complex regex and context based searches I'd probably pay it without a seconds thought.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:In depth search (Score:4, Interesting)
I suggest you try https://duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com] for searches like that - regexes, content categories, site-specific, all sorts of "goodies".
It hasn't replaced Google's other search modes for me, but feels like the first real good competitor for the standard web-search.
And BTW, They cater well to the privacy-concerned - they don't keep any info on you, use a redirect to remove your search terms when you click on a result, and will gladly operate over SSL for anything
Re: (Score:2)
Have you looked at google search squared?
http://www.google.com/squared [google.com]
If google squared doesn't give you relevant results, then you are probably not competent to use a search engine. And, guess what? It's FREE!!
Could be very dangerous at work (Score:2)
Imagine the intermediary search results if I search for "ASSault" or "ASSigning a variable in Python" or "CUMmington" or "CUMmerbun" [wikipedia.org] (yes, that's the correct spelling) or any other phrase that could be misconstrued by a company's internet filter as inappropriate.
I can see it now - I search for ASSertionError and get a screen full of butt at work.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
yes, that's the correct spelling
Doesn't it have a D on the end? Or is this some kind of salted pastry?
Self-ownage (Score:1)
If you're going to be a spelling nazi then jeez louise get it right. Quote from above:
"CUMmerbun" (yes, that's the correct spelling)
Linked article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummerbund [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Ouch! Owned!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Whatever you do, just don't do looking for goat security.
Cocktail recipes (Score:1)
Maybe? (Score:1)
My vote would be to tone it down a bit and just flash up the first three results of the predictive search below the bar just to give you the flavor instead of the whole result. I think there are ways to do this already with browser extensions but I'm cool with my search as-is at the moment so haven't investigated.
One could just make a little script that automatically presses enter every time you type a key in a google search bar and you'd have essentially the same thing. That actually sounds a little ann
I feel sorry... (Score:4, Funny)
Or searching for information about shitake mushrooms.
Or looking for the latest football results for Arsenal.
Or cocktail recipes.
Ad Impressions (Score:3, Insightful)
Does each ad that pops up during this phase count as an "impression"? This would really screw with the Advertisers.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
You don't pay CPM on Google, it's Cost Per Click. Wouldn't make the slightest difference except to slightly shift the Click Through Rate.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
I thought advertisers paid for clicks, not impressions?
seizure time (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
How annoying would it be if someone tried to answer a quest
Not that annoying. I have like fifty dire rats in my cellar, and I'm willing to give thirty gp to anyone who's willing to clear them out.
Time to turn off javascript for google.com... (Score:2)
It has already been pointed out, by Schneier I think, that this misfeature allows anybody doing simple traffic analysis to discover exactly what you typed. That is because the reply traffic from typing 'a' is a slightly different size than the reply traffic from typing 'b', and so forth.
Re: (Score:2)
Schneier is a self promoting idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you're half right.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with that concept is that, given the way Google works, the reply traffic from typing 'a' at one point in time will be different in size from the reply traffic from typing 'a' at a different point in time (and, wi
And Google becomes slower and slower to use... (Score:2)
Nice features like this come at a cost. Google is a nice web site when using my web tablet, but I guess I'll have to turn Javascript off when using it in the future.
Feature-itis strikes a once-elegant interface. :-(
Keyboardr clone? (Score:2)
I've been using this a spell-checker (Score:2)
Old news (Score:1)
How is this news. This has been happening to me when I use Google for several months.
Like any "feature", sometime it is very useful, sometimes not.
Big deal....
Looks fake (Score:2)
Yet another reason... (Score:2)
... to not use Google.
There is little in the world of SW that I find more disgusting than these "screw you around while you type" features, like, search as you type, autocorrect in wordprocessors, and now "Instant Search". I really hate it when producers of code think they can outsmart the user; programs are tools, tools are not supposed to take the initiative - the user should be in control. Just imagine your circular saw taking the initiative to remove that finger of yours, that is so obviously in the way
it just seems obvious (Score:1)