09 September 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Google Instant enables faster searches and smarter predictions

Google unveiled the new face of search at a high-profile event in San Francisco on Wednesday, which could change the way search engines are used forever.

Google Instant aims to make the search experience even faster and more precise by refreshing the search engine results page from the moment users begin typing their queries. The company described its new feature as a "fundamental change," and estimated that "dynamically predicting what people search for reduces the time it takes to enter a typical query by 50 per cent."

The new search service has been calculated to save users between two and five seconds for every search query made. That amounts to a total 11 hours saved every second by the world's combined internet population, amounting to 111 years per day.

Google's introduction of live search results was eagerly anticipated by the industry and web surfers alike, especially when the Mountain View company caused much speculation with a Google Doodle yesterday. The new feature has already been rolled out to users signed into Google accounts and will become the default over the next few days, except for users on slow connections.

Users who prefer the traditional search engine can opt out of Google Instant by changing their preferences, however, according to the Telegraph, the 'live' service will not have a noticeable impact on broadband speeds.

Even the inevitable increase in requests to Google's servers generated by the new service, estimated to be between five and seven times that of the previous search model, will be relatively insignificant due to the small amount of data in each transmission.

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