A new and unannounced feature has been spotted in Google search results which highlights popular videos from the web in an entity’s Knowledge Panel.
The feature was first discovered by Sergey Alakov, and later covered by local search expert Mike Blumenthal.
"Videos from the web" in KP. https://t.co/g4Room0qyC @mblumenthal @rustybrick @jenstar pic.twitter.com/78f2n0CqNB
— Sergey Alakov (@sergey_alakov) November 29, 2016
While the two noted that it was found in local search Knowledge Panels, upon further searching I found it also extends to other entities. Here are some examples of what it looks like for other types of searches:
Movies
Video Games
TV Shows
It’s possible the ‘Videos from the web’ feature exists for other searches as well, but that’s all I have been able to find so far.
Freshness seems to be a significant ranking factor when it comes to surfacing videos in the Knowledge Panel, as every example I could find contained videos uploaded within the past several months.
It would actually be more accurate to call these ‘Videos from YouTube’, rather than ‘Videos from the web’, because the videos do not appear to be coming from any other source.
On one hand that makes sense because Google owns YouTube and it doesn’t serve the company’s best interests to highlight other services. On the other hand it’s misleading to say these are videos from all over the web when they’re really all coming from one place.
In any case, this new feature provides businesses with a unique opportunity to stand out in search results through video marketing. If video marketing isn’t already part of your search engine optimization strategy, there’s now more incentive than ever to get your business on YouTube — which is already one of the world’s largest search engines on its own.
