Comments on: Thumbnail based web design?

By: Davey N

Davey N — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Pretty useless feature if you ask me

By: Filsupport

Filsupport — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:49:00 +0000

This is very informative, especially for people who are planning to have a new website or wants to redesign their existing one.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 23:57:49 +0000

Thanks for the tip. Even though I knew about google preview I guess it never occurred to me to think how it would really effect designs. I was also unaware that it couldn't take snapshots of flash. Certainly something to take into consideration.

By: raybak

raybak — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 06:26:33 +0000

for some reason google preview shows my website with only one thumbnail. I dont know why it didnt cached other thumbs on the home page :-s

By: Landon Zirkelbach

Landon Zirkelbach — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:10:49 +0000

Noticed this a week or 2 ago. I think its a great strategy by Google to weed out those using unfavorable tactics to get search engine results. Great article to bring this to the attention of more people!

Landon

By: Dafydd

Dafydd — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 15:54:10 +0000

Even if your full view is well developed it doesn't necessarily translate to the google preview e.g. if you have alt content for your flash elements it will not show the flash or the alt content. Doesn't look good!

By: Lyndsay Babl

Lyndsay Babl — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:38:37 +0000

Instant Preview is the logical counterpart to Google Instant, which they rolled out first.

It's nothing to "worry" about per se (unless you're a horrific front-end/UI designer) but something to be aware of along with the 20,000 other things we need to be aware of.

By: Coswyn

Coswyn — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:42:36 +0000

If the preview in the thumbnail satisfies but the full-view disappoints then there will be no retention. But if the full-view satisfies then surely the preview will as well, therefore the focus should not be on an attractive preview when the full-view is the root of it.

Instant Preview will likely stay, and see more use than most other general search upgrades that Google has implemented lately, but I'm not sure that it will see much favor being that it deviates from the simplified functionality that is Google's primary draw.

By: Steven

Steven — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:08:38 +0000

I find this really interesting, as I have Google stripped bare and never notice these kinda things. I guess if it takes off, we can add search engine preview optimization to our SEO repertoire.

However, the millions of people looking for textual content will find this of no use at all, unless the preview can be specifically optimised to be read at preview size.

By: Darren Miller

Darren Miller — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:38:31 +0000

"If the thumbnail is incomplete, unattractive or does not seem relevant the user is significantly less likely to click"

You're probably correct, but nevertheless that's a pretty sweeping statement. I'd want to see some research that confirms the suspicion before suggesting further investment in design to 'fix' an undesirable thumbnail.

Interesting post though.