Quick View Button Coming to Google’s Mobile SERPs?
If you frequently use a mobile device to access the web, and especially if you sometimes suffer from a slower-than-ideal wireless internet connection, a new feature from Google known as “Quick View” could make your life a whole lot easier.
Although the feature has not been released across all of Google mobile search engine results pages just yet, Search Engine Land reports that the new button is currently being tested within several markets. If you haven’t already guessed the purpose of the “Quick View” button from its name, allow us to explain.
Load the Whole Page? How About a Preview…
Quick View works like this: When you’re browsing through a page of search results on Google while using a mobile device, you’ll notice a blue “Quick View” button next to the description for each page. While clicking the blue anchor text of the link will bring you directly to the page as usual, tapping the Quick View button will instead bring you to a bare-bones, faster-loading version of the same page. Anyone who’s struggled with a slow-loading page or a lackluster internet connection, particularly those still on 3G or the EDGE network, will appreciate the new feature.
What’s not so certain is what the Quick View button will mean for online advertisers. If a user opts for Quick View instead of the actual page, will they get the information they need and move on with their searching duties before they even pay a visit to the site? Will users start to opt for Quick View instead of the actual site as a way of avoiding seeing ads? Or will Quick View display ads, albeit fast-loading ones, as well?
A Useful Feature for Users or a Money-Grab for Google?
Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Land sent an email to Google asking for more details about Quick View, though he isn’t expecting a reply until after the holidays. One user on Search Engine Land already made a pointed comment, however, contemplating Google’s motives behind Quick View: “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 company that has become the web’s biggest parasite.”
Harsh, perhaps, but it’s telling of how many internet users, especially those with a stake in SEO, have come to view Google as an all-powerful monopoly that has long forgotten its old motto, “Don’t be evil.”
At the same time, and with Quick View being such a new feature, only time will tell whether the change is a good one just for consumers, or for site owners and online advertisers as well.