Google Instant Pages: A New Way To Speed Up Search

Google unveiled a new search tool, Instant Pages, that the company promises will shave 4-10 seconds off of users' queries.

Google Instant Pages relies on existing Google search technologies such as Google Instant, which automatically suggests customized queries, to load web pages more quickly by pre-loading the results the search algorithm predicts a user will click on. Rather than having to wait for the images, text, and other elements of a page to load, users will be able to click on a link in the search results and see all the components of the page virtually instantly.

"All of this time goes back to humanity for them to go back to their quest for knowledge and search some more," said Amit Singhal at Google's Inside Search event.

Singhal noted that web pages are becoming increasingly complex and are now around 700 kilobytes in size. For each query a user performs she spends, on average, 9 seconds entering her query, 15 seconds choosing the result she will click on, and 5 seconds waiting for the page she picks to load. Google Instant Pages will essentially use time during the 15 seconds the user is evaluating the results to process the page, so when she clicks on the search result, the page will pop open more quickly. "With Instant Pages, Chrome begins preloading the first search result when we're confident it's what you're looking for," Google explained in a video.

"At the end of the day, our job is to get people what they want at super speed," said Singhal.

Another Googler noted that speeding up Google's features encourages people to spend more time with the tools.

"Every time we speed up an application people use it more," she said.

Google Instant Pages will be available this week in Chrome Beta and Tuesday on the developer version of Google Chrome.

WATCH:

LOOK:

A normal Google query vs. a Google query using Instant Pages:

A breakdown of a search query:

The technology used in Instant Pages:

Comments

[dreadylocks]

04:24 PM on 06/15/2011

It could be nice sometimes but I would be pretty upset if I had a bandwidth limit for my internet service. Hopefully there will be an opt-out feature for those folks.

[dreamblood]

12:35 PM on 06/15/2011

it's simply a precaching of all the possible pages assuming users will wait to click the links

[Jeff Yablon]

09:10 AM on 06/15/2011

Google Instant Search Concerns me at two levels:

First, if the top result for each search query is the only one getting pre-rendered, people will eventually be subconsciously (or maybe even consciously) conditioned to always choose result #1.

What exactly IS result #1? An advertiser, or an organic search result?

If it's the former, Google is now creating yet another compelling reason to click on the results that make them money rather than the ones that are relevant to your search. If the latter, then you'd darned well better make sure you achieve #1 rankings; just being in the first few or on the first page will be less and less useful.

Listen: that second scenario is actually a good thing for me. My company is in the Search Engine Optimization business. We get people on the first page, and now we can sell ... well, I guess we need to start charging more and getting our clients #1 instead of just NEAR #1.

OK, so three levels ...

Look at the numbers that Google is providing about the speed of web pages and their size. 700K/ five seconds is average? Hmm. Oddly, Google tells me that Answer Guy Central takes 2.5 seconds to load, andthey also tell me that puts it almost exactly at the 50th percentile in speed. And it's about 200K in size.

So basically, this all just says we can't trust what Google is telling us. Or worse, they don't understand what they're saying to us.

[Vic S]

08:31 AM on 06/15/2011

I'm not thrilled with some algorithm making decisions for me. I am known for finding obscure but vital information that takes some time poking around in not so obvious places, reworking search terms, and a bit of patience and fortitude. Speeding up a process that will land me on the wrong page time and again won't help me a bit.

[jabailo]

03:35 AM on 06/15/2011

What it means is that people basically ignore all the formatting and want to get to the text.

[RGKahn]

12:22 AM on 06/15/2011

It is not the speed of the search or the time of the search that drives me crazy it is the amount of information that is retrieved that bears no relationship to the request information. Example: a question concerning the United States Department of Defense's budget for the current fiscal year. It will give me information about each word and in various combinations. In fact almost everything except what I asked for. If you put it in quotes it claims that the question is too specific and cannot comply with the request. Bing is a little better and Yahoo is as bad, if not worse. There are a hundred thousand hits, But is has been my experience that the hits listed up front are from sites that pay to be placed first and that as you get further down the list they have absolutely nothing to do with the requested information. Usually within 10 pages they are a dead end.

[BryantG]

11:11 PM on 06/14/2011

If it's not accessible via Google or defined in Wikipedia, then doies it exist? I'm concerned that just two companies decide what's knowable.

[Dr JAY Veeoh]

09:42 PM on 06/14/2011

Google search results are fast, but 99%+ useless.No date,no classification,a system to suit dummies.
Who needs 2 million answers in 5 secs ? I am happy with 2 or 3 useful ones in say 5 minutes.

As it happens ,digital systems deliver a tsunami of info, most of it not required.Analogue type searches based on date,author,subject,etc are slow but sure.

But then, people are in a hurry to find out what they do not really need.And half an answer is sufficient.The real stuff remains hidden for them or comes out altered and massaged by all sorts of artists, on the front page.

[kcinpa]

08:11 PM on 06/14/2011

I have never been able to get Chrome to work well for me. It always freezes up or crashes.

[Revee]

06:29 PM on 06/14/2011

Truly amazing company when it comes to Search! I use Google almost exclusively.

[JohnSawyer]

04:51 PM on 06/14/2011

This looks like Google decided to pre-load the "I'm Feeling Lucky" first hit for you, which normally displays the first link in the list of search results, but in this case it isn't displayed unless you click on it. When you do, it's already loaded on your computer.

[kravanator]

04:42 PM on 06/14/2011

Now how will Google's "Instant Pages" impact analytics? False visits?

[Billy2]

04:49 PM on 06/14/2011

It is accounted for.

http://blog.chromium.org/2011/06/prerendering-in-chrome.html

[RGKahn]

12:24 AM on 06/15/2011

What does that mean?