Google announced that it will roll out a new search tool to help users choose a site to visit not only based on the information in each result eg: the title, a snippet of text and the URL, but also an image-based snapshot called “Instant Previews”.

Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine. To use it, click once on the magnifying glass next to the title of any search result and a visual overview of the page will appear on the right. From there, hover your cursor over any other result to see a preview. For those of you who’ve recently stopped using your mouse to search, now you can navigate to a result, hit the right arrow key to see the preview, and hit the down arrow key to keep browsing.

Google testing found that people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. The previews provide new ways to evaluate search results, making you more likely to find what you’re looking for on the pages you visit. Here are some of the things you can do to get the most out of Instant Previews:

• Quickly compare results - A visual comparison of search results helps you pick the one that’s right for you. Quickly flip through previews to see which page looks best.

• Pinpoint relevant content - Text call outs, in orange, will sometimes highlight where your search terms appear on the webpage so you can evaluate if it’s what you're looking for.

• Interact with the results page - Page previews let you see the layout of a webpage before clicking the search result. Looking for a chart, picture, map or list? See if you can spot one in the preview.

Google recently began calculating website page load speeds for ranking purposes and insist that with some websites taking four or five seconds, or even longer to load, search users need a tool to speed the process. With Instant Previews, Google will match your query with an index of the entire web, identify the relevant parts of each web page, stitch them together and serve the resulting preview completely customized to your search usually in under one-tenth of a second. Once you click the magnifying glass, the previews for the other results load in the background so you can flip through them without waiting.

Now if everyone would just use this tool and stop clicking on those finely tuned SEO spam advert sites that plague page one of Google we are all more likely to be satisfied with the results clicked!