New Google Tool Lets You Preview Instant Previews In Webmaster Tools

There’s a new toy available now in Google’s Webmaster Tools: It’s an Instant Previews preview tool that lets you see what any page on your website will look like in Google’s Instant Previews. The tool actually pulls double-duty, also showing a preview of what the page will look like in the Chrome web browser, too. […]

Chat with SearchBot

There’s a new toy available now in Google’s Webmaster Tools: It’s an Instant Previews preview tool that lets you see what any page on your website will look like in Google’s Instant Previews.

The tool actually pulls double-duty, also showing a preview of what the page will look like in the Chrome web browser, too.

instant-preview-previews

The Chrome preview is on the left and the Instant Preview preview is on the right. Not shown is a list that Google provides of errors that it encountered when trying to render the previews.

It’s actually a bit confusing, though. In the case of my U2 website above, the Instant Preview on the right is lacking images because I’m blocking the images directory via robots.txt — and that’s listed as one of the errors in Webmaster Tools. But on a Google.com web search, the Instant Preview for the site works and looks fine, with no missing images.

instant-preview-good

Google’s announcement explains that the tool doesn’t render content formats like Flash and Silverlight. The tool is currently available in English only and can be found under the “Labs” tab in Webmaster Tools.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.