Google Search is arguably the most used tool on the web, which is why the company is always experimenting with new ways to improve it. This week, Google Search is testing a small UI tweak that shows image previews when you hover the mouse pointer over a link.
This new Search UI tweak now appears for some users in private browsing modes and looks normal at first glance, but it can provide a bit more detail without leaving the search window.
The new test can display a larger text preview and, in some cases, image previews of an article directly from Google Search when you hover over the link. Whether extensive text or images are available depends on the article and possibly the topic. When searching for ‘Stadia’ we could only find text examples from sources such as Wikipedia and the Stadia Dev Blog. However, searching for a “Note 20 Review” showed image samples from almost every site as well as slightly elaborate text samples.
This feature probably won’t stop people from actually clicking through to a website, but it does provide more context before leaving the search results. Granted, it looks a bit messy as the image results don’t disappear after you stop hovering over them.
You can see the new UI test in action below.
We were able to activate the mode in Chrome’s incognito mode earlier today, but in the hours since it disappeared. Some users on Twitter also discovered the new user interface. It’s unclear if this will be rolled out publicly at any point.
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