Google Introduces Instant Search

Submitted by lalit on September 8, 2010 - 4:29pm.

Google today introduced Google Instant, which the company calls search before you type. Google says “As you can imagine, searching even before someone types isn’t easy—which is why we are so excited today to be unveiling Google Instant.” Google Instant is search-before-you-type. Instant takes what you have typed already, predicts the most likely completion and streams results in real-time for those predictions—yielding a smarter and faster search that is interactive, predictive and powerful.

Main Features in Google Instant are:

  • Dynamic Results - Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
  • Predictions - One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
  • Scroll to search - Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

Google is using host of new technologies in Instant including new caching systems, the ability to adaptively control the rate at which we show results pages and an optimization of page-rendering JavaScript to help web browsers keep up with the rest of the system.

The main benefit of Google Instant is time saved with average user saving two to five seconds per search. On average users will save 11 hours per year by using Google Instant.

Google Instant will become the core search experience on Google.com for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8 in US. Google Instant will also be available to users in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the U.K. who are signed in and have Instant-capable browsers. Over the coming weeks and months, Google Instant will be rolled out to all geographies and platforms. You can try Google Instant here. The video below explains Google Instant in greater depth.