Google Tests "Quick View" Button In Mobile Search Results

Google Tests “Quick View” Button In Mobile Search Results

Dec 26, 2012 at 9:46am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google seems to be testing a new feature named “Quick View” in their smart phone enabled search results. The feature lets you load a page from the source web site in a quicker method, instead of loading the full page, which might require longer download time.

Here is a picture of searching for [seo] on an iPhone 5 where a Wikipedia result shows a big blue button for “Quick View”:

When you click on the “Quick View” button, you are taken to a light-weight version of the page, maybe the mobile version of Wikipedia?

Wissam Dandan discovered this and shared it on Google+.

I have emailed Google for more details, but I suspect a response might take some time during the holiday break.

Note: Quick View, the terminology has been used by Google prior when viewing PDF files on Google’s search results.

Postscript: A Google spokesperson sent us a note:

We’re always working on ways to make the web faster, especially on mobile devices — this is one of the experiments we’re running.

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Top News

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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daveintheuk

This sounds awfully like Google serving up other people’s content up as if it were their own. I guess it is the next logical progression for the web’s biggest leach.
Durant Imboden

According to the post above, “the feature lets you [the mobile searcher] load a page from the source web site in a quicker method.”

Note the reference to “from the source Web site.”

It sounds like Google is just trying to make it easier for smartphone users to reach smartphone-optimized Web pages when such pages exist, and when Google’s SERP isn’t directing the smartphone searchers to such pages by default.
http://www.feldmancreative.com/ Barry Feldman

Treating smart phones differently? Smart.
http://twitter.com/YoungbloodJoe Joe Youngblood

yeah, I asked 2 years ago why Google doesn’t have a separate algo for Mobile only queries. I hate trying to load a non-mobile site on my phone just to watch the 4G back down to 2G as I realize the page will take forever to load and then backing up into search for the next website down.

I don’t think quickview is the answer, because it’s not intuitive to the user, as we can see by our own community not clearly understanding what the heck it is.
rugbyman

Haven’t you heard about Google Mobilizer? http://www.google.com/gwt/x