Google auto-playing video previews in search results carousel on Android

Google is now showing six-second video previews in the search results delivered on Android devices.

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Google announced they have added video previews to the video carousel that shows up in the search results. Currently, this only occurs when you are using the Google app for Android or using Chrome on Android.

When you toggle through the videos in the carousel, it will show you a six-second preview of the video. Here is a GIF of it in action:

Google Video Previews Carousel

Google said this will only be the default behavior when the user is on a Wi-Fi connection. But users can enable video previews on mobile networks or opt-out of this feature entirely by going to the settings menu within the Google app or adjusting settings for Android Chrome.

Not too long ago, Google was caught testing auto-playing videos in their search results. This implementation isn’t as significant a change as people were seeing in that test, but it still adds a lot more interactivity and motion to the search results.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

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