Google just started showing a preview icon next to its organic search results. This feature was introduced the week of November 8^th. When the listings show, it appears that one has to click on the icon once to see the preview, but after that, one can just mouse over the other icons

So far the feature itself seems really slick, but the coolest part is that the preview appears to highlight certain parts of the page that are applicable to your search.   I don’t see this feature on all previews and I am wondering what Google is looking at – it appears that the Meta description also gets highlighted more often than anything else. Once this feature is full steam ahead, it could eliminate a lot of situations where people click on a search link only to find out that it wasn't what they were looking for and then immediately go back to the results. Of course we would guess that Google has to open the site to preview it, so who knows how the whole thing will affect Google Analytics.

How this will affect traffic to your site is still a guess, but if viewers are truly using this feature, then it will be critical that the preview look attractive and visually display what the searchers are looking for. This implies that landing pages should probably make sure that descriptive graphics are on the page since that will be easily seen by the preview.   In a sample of previews that I viewed, the text was not decipherable, so graphics and perhaps bolded headings will stand out.    I also see that flash is not going to appear –so if your page has a significant amount of flash – your preview will be meaningless.

My initial recommendations are to view your preview and ask yourself if the searcher is seeing enough to make a decision, if not you may want to add a quality image or larger bolded headlines.