Instant Search will no longer be available starting from today
Seven years after its induction into Google Search, the search engine giant has announced that Instant Search will no longer be available starting from today.
The feature, launched during the time of Marissa Mayer, was one of the most talked about till recently as most instant search results gave users results on without having to press the search button.
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The decision to scrap one of the lauded features of the search engine comes in the wake of more than 50 percent of users preferring mobiles, where the users find the results causing constraints due to the smaller size of the device when compared to desktops.
A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land: “We launched Google Instant back in 2010 with the goal to provide users with the information they need as quickly as possible, even as they typed their searches on desktop devices. Since then, many more of our searches happen on mobile, with very different input and interaction and screen constraints. With this in mind, we have decided to remove Google Instant, so we can focus on ways to make Search even faster and more fluid on all devices.”
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Now, as one does a Google search – though the search suggestions come up, the search engine results page doesn’t load automatically like before. Users will have to click on a suggestion to get them to the results page.
The decision to kill Instant Search was taken after Google witnessed exponential growth in the mobile users who outnumbered people using the desktop version. It seems like Google doesn’t want to spend time restructuring the search engine results page for mobile, which could have prompted them to get rid of Instant search.