Google is now showing large embedded YouTube videos at the top of the search results for more videos other than the music videos that have previously been shown.
Google began showing large music videos embedded right at the top of the search results when users were searching for specific songs that people were likely to want to watch the video for. The videos all appeared to link to the “official” music video on a channel related to the artist or the record label. Now we are seeing large embedded videos right in the top of the search results that are shown for “non-official” sources. The change also includes much less knowledge graph information.
This search for “Lucic Ryan Miller” for a specific well known hit Milan Lucic made on goaltender Ryan Miller in 2011. The video – from a non-official source – is displayed in the search results, but without any attribution at all other than the title and the URL.
The other interesting thing about this embedding is that it doesn’t show any more details about the video, despite there being a description on YouTube for this video. This is quite different from the previous music video knowledge graph embeds which included the artist, the album and the year. The source is not an “official” NHL source, although there are some Sportsnet and NHL.com videos in the search results, so it shows Google is willing to give search result space to non-official sources of videos as well when they are uploaded to YouTube.
For video marketers, you should note that having the URL displayed on the video itself will likely be more important than it is now, especially if these videos happen more frequently. The URL for hockeyfights.com is clearly displayed within the video screenshot displayed in the search results, and it is worth noting that this website does not appear in the search results otherwise for this particular query. The video itself is popular with over 800,000 views.
Another video getting the special embed treatment is “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” from Frozen.
It is also from a non-Disney source for a video uploaded by a user just in March this year, but with 10 million views, it was chosen to be embedded in the search results page. Again, there is no extra information in the embed other than the title and URL, however there were additional knowledge graph boxes on the page as well. However, Disney is missing out on video revenue, while the uploader who doesn’t own the rights to the video stands to make money when the video is viewed.
Embedded music videos still have the extra information beneath it, including artist name, album, release date and nomination information if applicable.
The downside to these huge videos being embedded right in the search results, is those pages that would show up otherwise don’t get clicked on, even if those pages contain the exact same video. True, it is convenient for searchers, but searchers aren’t always looking for videos – none of the searches were specifically for videos. But it is yet another way that Google is reducing organic exposure for non-Google properties.
Jennifer Slegg
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