Searching for a music video on Google? Maybe “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars or “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk? Now Google is using the space above its organic search results to give more prominence to the top playable music video result.
Say you search for [daft punk get lucky], you’ll see this:
Though it looks like you should be able to play it straight from the search results, clicking on the giant thumbnail won’t actually play the video. Rather, clicking takes you to YouTube to view the video. Below the video, Google also links to searches for the artist and the album on which the song you’ve searched for appears.
While it doesn’t have to be an “official” music video, Google seems to be pulling these videos from official artist channels the majority of the time, though it isn’t perfect.
There are cases where Google features videos uploaded by a random YouTube user, such as [dr. dre let me ride]. Even though there is a DrDreVEVO account, “Let Me Ride” isn’t a video uploaded to that YouTube channel; though the video for “I Need a Doctor” is, and a search for that music video doesn’t trigger one of the giant YouTube thumbnails, even adding the word “video” to the search:
“This was already available in September 2013 when you searched for an artist and then clicked on a song – you’d see a preview of the music video if it was available to display,” said a Google spokesperson. “Yesterday we made it easier to get to – you can now just search for a song directly and see the video screenshot right away.”
Though it appears Google is sending searchers to YouTube videos most of the time, Google pointed out that this feature draws “from multiple sources, not just YouTube – it highlights the first playable video in the search results.” Though results from other sites are given a much smaller thumbnail.
For example, here’s a search for [simply beautiful queen latifah] that links to Dailymotion:
And [zaho tourner la page], which links to Vimeo:
And [money trees kendrick lamar], which links to Vimeo:
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2014/02/05/google-gives-more-prominence-to-first-playable-music-video-search-result/
