22 September 2011

Google Search shows the number of visits to a result

Along with showing which of your online connections have recommended the page, it seems the +1 button in the search results gained another feature: to display the number of times the user has visited that page. The information appears while hovering the +1 button, as well as a small snippet on the bottom side of the result. Judging by the date mentioned in the snippet as my last visit and by the fact that it only shows up while being logged in, I can only assume the feature uses Google Web History, which in my case has been disabled for a couple of years. Come to think of it, the number of times you visited a search result is a good indication of the quality of that page in relation to the query: if you visit it only once, you probably didn’t find the right answer. It was probably a part of ranking for some time and it’s nice to see it being featured more openly on the search results page, because it reinforces the user’s trust in the link he is about to visit.  Google search number of visits to a search result

P.S. I was going to mention the new design of Instant Previews, replacing the magnifying glass with bigger arrows, but the announcement has already arrived on the official blog.

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