To clarify, not really a carousel, more of a SERP feature (similar to the Visual Stories SERP feature). You can view 4 short videos by default and click "more videos" to view an additional set of short videos. Here is the expanded list of short videos. pic.twitter.com/h5jsnm22kN
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 4, 2022
If you remember, short videos made their first appearance in 2020 and that’s when we saw sources other than YouTube promote the format. Today, we’ve got TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook using the popular venture, not to mention its growing trends on desktop computers as well.Noticed that yesterday also! Looks like short videos are starting to appear more often. I saw a case where both short videos/visual stories were on the same SERP - both were ranking quite high also. Here’s when this format was first tested: https://t.co/bpAo3PhjXe
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) May 4, 2022
When we compare it with Web Stories, we see a similar trend in terms of timings. But to be more specific, it all began back in 2018 as that’s when AMP stories began rolling out. Then about a year later, we saw visual stories come into play, then right after that, we witnessed the web story transition whenever there were specific key phrase requests.
Recently, Gabe mentioned through a post on Twitter how the time is not far before we see short videos rule the day, replacing web stories. Gabe’s headline post was a watch-out call for the world to prepare for change as short videos were now replacing web stories for different celeb names and the rankings were higher.
Clark soon followed with another post that spoke in detail about how short videos are being seen ever so often than before and they’re ranking higher than before, showing great demand and promising potential. In the same way, Clark revealed how this might be the first time he’s seen short videos like this, hinting how they could well overcome the demands for SERP video stories soon.
As it is, many people feel web stories are a complicated affair. Not only are they hard to make, but with lesser demand as proven by a decreased number of clicks, they also might not be worth investing in the first place.
On another front, we’re seeing Google carry on with its mobile user interface searches but the only notable difference now is the addition of plenty of variations. To be more specific, we’re seeing a change in the format for grid results and other major changes to videos that are full width.
Here’s another variation of grid formatted search results test I spotted last week.
— Brian Freiesleben (@type_SEO) May 1, 2022
The difference with this test is that it leads users directly to the site vs just sending them to G images (yay!). https://t.co/Z71K8Zzgn7 pic.twitter.com/h8OtcQjgE8
The new version for grid search tries to mix image search results with the main web page in a more direct manner, as compared to directly linking it to Google’s images.
This format, as noted by experts, appears to be very aligned with what we saw being launched by the tech giant for its product results in 2021. The only difference is Google is sending its users directly to images instead.
Here is an example of the full-width YouTube results that @Kevin_Monier brought up the other day. In a weird twist, I'm seeing them based on @type_SEO's find in the SERPs. :) Oh, and h/t @tldrMarketing for surfacing Brian's tweet. I missed it the other day. pic.twitter.com/PvzgWTZrEE
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 3, 2022
Let’s not forget another test being witnessed by Google users. The platform is allowing full video-based search results to be seen as snippets in the mobile results Google search engine. This seems like another interesting way of adding videos to the classic SERP.
For now, it’s just a test as many tech experts failed to replicate it. But so many of us do hope it ends up coming through soon for all.
Read next: Microsoft, Apple, And Google Join Hands For ‘Passwordless’ Sign-Ins Across All Platforms
