Google search adds key moments for videos in search

Yesterday we spotted Google testing a new video feature titled in this video that shows a timeline of what happened in a specific video. Google now has officially launched this feature, calling it key moments in videos.

What it looks like. Here is a screen shot of the feature that shows this in action:

Find content within videos. This helps searchers quickly find content within videos. Google said “When you search for things like how-to videos that have multiple steps, or long videos like speeches or a documentary, Search will provide links to key moments within the video, based on timestamps provided by content creators. You’ll be able to easily scan to see whether a video has what you’re looking for, and find the relevant section of the content. For people who use screen readers, this change also makes video content more accessible.”

How can my videos show this? Google said this will work for English videos hosted on YouTube, where creators have provided timestamp information in the video description. It is not supported outside of YouTube yet, but Google opened a form to ask video creators about their interest outside of YouTube. The form is available over here. Those not on YouTube will need to markup their videos using video schema and fill out that form.

Why we care. Video is big, really big, and Google shows many videos in its search results. If you do video as part of your content marketing strategy, you probably want to test the impact of having key moments work in your videos in search and not. Will those videos rank better, will searchers interact with your videos less or more, will your conversion metrics around these videos suffer or do better? Make sure to test this out and experiment maybe before implementing it on all your videos.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz 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. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.