Simplifying video presentation on Google Search Results
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Thursday, April 13, 2023
Today, we're making a change so that video thumbnails only appear next to Google search results when the video is the main content of a page.
This will make it easier for users to understand what to expect when they visit a page.
Previously, we showed video thumbnails in two different ways.
For pages where the video was the main content of the page, it appeared at the beginning of a listing:
This remains unchanged. The other format was for when a video was present on a page but not the main element of a page.
In that case, the thumbnail appeared after a listing:
This second format is going away. In experiments, this change has had minimal impact on overall engagement for publishers.
This change will impact search appearance reported metrics for videos in the performance report in Search Console.
There will be annotations in the video indexing report and the video enhancements report.
To learn more about video indexing best practices, check out the video best practices guide.
For questions, feel free to post in our Search Central help community, where you can join a discussion with like-minded experts.
Posted by Cory Benavente, Product Manager, Google Search
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
[null,null,[],[[["\u003cp\u003eVideo thumbnails in Google Search results will now only appear when the video is the main content of a page.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis change aims to improve user experience by providing a clearer understanding of page content before clicking.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe impact on publisher engagement has been minimal based on experiments.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eSearch appearance metrics for videos in Search Console performance reports will be affected, with annotations provided in video indexing and enhancement reports.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor further information and support, refer to the video best practices guide and the Search Central help community.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Google is changing how video thumbnails appear in search results. Thumbnails will now only appear when a video is the primary content of a page. The previous format, where thumbnails appeared for secondary videos, is being removed. This change is expected to have minimal impact on publisher engagement. Video-related metrics in the Search Console's performance report, video indexing report, and video enhancements report will be affected, and there will be annotations for this change.\n"],null,["# Simplifying video presentation on Google Search Results\n\nThursday, April 13, 2023\n\n\nToday, we're making a change so that video thumbnails only appear next to Google search results when the video is the main content of a page.\nThis will make it easier for users to understand what to expect when they visit a page.\n\n\nPreviously, we showed video thumbnails in two different ways.\nFor pages where the video was the main content of the page, it appeared at the beginning of a listing:\n\n\nThis remains unchanged. The other format was for when a video was present on a page but not the main element of a page.\nIn that case, the thumbnail appeared after a listing:\n\n\nThis second format is going away. In experiments, this change has had minimal impact on overall engagement for publishers.\n\n\nThis change will impact search appearance reported metrics for videos in the [performance report](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7576553) in Search Console.\nThere will be annotations in the [video indexing report](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9495631) and the [video enhancements report](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7552505).\n\n\nTo learn more about video indexing best practices, check out the [video best practices guide](/search/docs/appearance/video).\nFor questions, feel free to post in our [Search Central help community](https://goo.gle/sc-forum), where you can join a discussion with like-minded experts.\n\nPosted by [Cory Benavente](/search/blog/authors/cory-benavente), Product Manager, Google Search"]]
