Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
New Google Direct Answer Type: YouTube Video?
Brian Alaway of Brian Alaway Consulting has spotted what appears to be a new YouTube Video Knowledge Graph direct answer type inserted at the top of the serps.
Google has been rapidly adding these direct answer knowledge graph results to top of the search results over the past few months. They have added Menus, Geometry Answers, Nutrition and sports answers amongst others within the past few months. These are on top of the previously added Map inserts, air travel and other inserts added over the past few years. This could add additional fuel to the Google anti-trust case in Europe if it roles out more widely.
An interesting side note noted by Brian is that Google’s code identifies the result as a knowledge graph result: div class=”_iL kno-fb-ctx knowledge-embedded_video_result__/*
To see the results search on: florida sex crime lawyer
Video inserts appear to be new at least to me. Have you seen these elsewhere?
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
9 Comments
It’s weird how one day Google favours one type of thing, and then radically shifts relevancy to another… somewhat unsettling for us in the optimization world 😉
That’s a new one definitely, quite impressive especially for such a general search for which I would expect more “local” results. One more case to make sure your Youtube/Google+ pages are fully connected and optimized. Thanks for the update!
Andrew Polanski from Local Curve 1st shared that video SERP and screen shot at my forum on 5/27 so we’ve been discussing over there.
I posted that I had seen the large YouTube videos in search previously, but it was organic search for a famous musician. I was surprised to see it show up for a local result.
@Linda
Was it the same result or a different search? This result uses the same encoding as the music video results so I am trying to figure out if this is 1) a test or 2) an anomoly
Wow that’s interesting! First I have seen of an over sized video taking over like that. Very interesting indeed!
“Was it the same result or a different search?”
The one posted at my forum? Exact same search and video.
http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/ranking-puzzles/18470-sex-crime-lawyer-tampa-interesting-results.html
Oops slightly different query, but same video.
There are different perspectives on this. Mike: please explain why you call them “knowledge graph”. They are video results from youtube. They have been inserted into organic serps for quite some time, basically for as long as maps from the maps index have similarly been a part of google universal search.
As to ranking highly in local results. Consider the following:
Youtube results for one are giving relatively high “trust”. SMB’s are google bombing these videos with pretty simple links and anchor text. With organic results, Google penalizes a website for doing this. Currently youtube videos aren’t being penalized. Its a technique that is danged clever and taking advantage of a sort of “ranking glitch” in the world of google sites and different google indices.
I bet as more seo’s working on this see this they’ll replicate it. Then google will penalize it.
Lets all watch over time.
Found another one of these whilst searching around this morning and it’s pretty easy to generate them now:
alan partridge it’s an extender
lord flashheart grand entrance
oasis wonderwall
All of those generate the video insert and you can pretty much pick any song or specific moments from tv / film etc and generate these.
My take would be that it comes down to the level of trust that Google has that this is not only the #1 result but would be the end destination just via another click anyway.
I used to work with voice recognition systems and they worked in a similar way. They would attempt to recognise a string from a set of pre determined possibilities (think movies) and then where there was a match a level of confidence would be returned.
As an example:
– If confidence was greater than say 90% we could just direct someone to those listings.
– If confidence was say greater than 50% but less than 90% we could pay a confirmation script (did you say X).
– If confidence was less than 50% we could ask them to repeat.
I tend to think this and knowledge boxes etc work in a similar way and where relevance and confidence is high they can show the end result rather than a link to it. Brand searches are a similar thing and if the brand is ambiguous like ours – Bowler Hat where most folks are searching for the head wear rather than our tiny little firm we don’t get a knowledge box. Other newer and smaller companies with no ambiguity in the name can get a knowledge box quite easily.
Interesting none the less and something for video marketeers to talk about.
Cheers all
Marcus
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