In another piece of Google news that has been stumbled upon in the wild, it looks like Google is now testing short-form videos on mobile search results!
1. Introduction
2. Table of Contents
3. Google Begins To Test Short Videos On Mobile Search Results
4. Final Thoughts Google's Test of Short Videos on Mobile
First stumbled upon on April 8th 2024, it appears as though Google is tinkering with offering short-form videos within its search results pages.
In a foreseeable-yet-still-a-bit-surprising move, Googlers stumbled across a new filter when searching the Google app on an Android device. Right up there with ‘Images’, ‘Shopping’, and ‘Videos’, there’s a new option: Short Videos.
According to Yaguara.co, short-form content is now preferred by 73% of consumers when searching for products and services. Not only that, the same research has shown that ‘Short-form videos receive 2.5 times more engagement than long-form videos’.
But, before you rush to your device to check, this hasn’t been widely rolled out yet. This search has only been found in the wild with no official announcement from Google preceding it. And this feature seems to appear and disappear at random - perhaps a bug or an accidental early release?
Luckily for us, what we can see is this super-cute example of a search for ‘puppies’ from Brodie Clark at Android Police:
So far, we can see a couple of results from YouTube shorts, but surprisingly, TikTok too. With Google’s ownership of YouTube, this is an interesting choice. Perhaps in the future we’ll see the algorithm ‘mysteriously’ favoring videos from Google-owned YouTube over popular TikToks and Instagram Reels.
With Google’s advances in their SGE (Search Generative Experience) this is hardly too surprising - with Google teams working harder than ever before to incorporate AI into the wider Google platforms. And, with Google’s search engine market share globally on the decline (but still very much dominant), this newest update seems like another string to their bow.
With the surge in popularity of short-form content, it’s almost a wonder that it’s taken this long for Google to adopt this as part of its search engine strategy. However, we’re very much looking forward to cute animal videos becoming even more prominent on the SERP.