Google is now requiring that the video be the main or primary content on the page for it to show your video in video mode, not just as video thumbnails in the search results like it did back in April. Google announced, "we're extending this change to search results in Video mode."
As a reminder, Google changed the search results to not show video thumbnails for search results where the page did not include the video as the main or primary part of the page's content. So if you embed a video on a page, as supplementary material or content to the page, that would not qualify to show as a video thumbnail in the Google search results. As a reminder, Google added the video has to be in your face for it to the the main content on that page.
Now this is expanding to videos show in the video mode, video tab, in the search results. This is what that section is:
Google began rolling out this change yesterday and it will take about a week to complete.
What does it mean to have the video be the main part of the content? Google said, "With this update, clicking a result in Video mode will only take users to a page where the video is the main content. Here's an example of a page where the video is the main content of the page: the video is above the fold, it's prominent, and the main purpose of the page is to watch that video."
Here is an example of video content that is not the main content:
- A blog post where the video is complementary to the text rather than the primary content of the page
- A product details page with a complementary video
- A video category page that lists multiple videos of equal prominence
Like with the change in April, this too may impact your performance and video indexing reports within Search Console. If you see new errors, it may be related to this change and if you see decreases or increases in video performance, it may be related to this change.
Google wrote, "As the update rolls out, you'll see the impact of this change in your Search Console video indexing report. Videos that aren't the main content of the page will appear as "No video indexed" in Search Console. We're also adding a new reason to the report to explain why these videos are not indexed: "Video is not the main content of the page", which simplifies the report by replacing the following issues:"
- Invalid video URL
- Unsupported video format
- Unknown video format
- Inline data URLs cannot be used for video URLs
- Video outside the viewport
- Video too small
- Video too tall
"Since these videos will no longer be shown in Video mode, you can expect to see a decrease in the number of pages with indexed videos. This decrease will also appear in the number of video impressions in the performance report, video indexing report, and the video rich results report in Search Console," Google added.
Here is that report:
Technically, I have my videos both embedded on blog posts here but also hosted on YouTube. This should reduce the duplicity of my videos showing up in the Google Search results...
A bit more on some of the error meanings:
Just being in the viewport doesn't make it the main content of the page (a small video that's also visible on a page vs a page that's all about a video).
— I am John - ⭐ Say no to cookies - biscuits only ⭐ (@JohnMu) December 4, 2023
And yes, calling it "video mode" did throw me off:
Just thinking out loud, but is anyone else intrigued by Google's use of "Video Mode" in their announcement today? Google has usually called it video search or the video tab in search. With more multimodal capabilities coming and video content booming (feeds of video content), I… pic.twitter.com/uGz7Y3WzL0
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 4, 2023
Forum discussion at X.
