YouTube Rolls out New Search Features for Better Video Discoverability

To enable users to discover more relevant content on its platform, Google-owned video platform YouTube is rolling out a few significant updates to its search functionality. With this update, YouTube will begin showing video chapters right on the search results page, show video snippets for search results on its mobile app, and show the content of other languages with automatically translated captions.

New Features for YouTube Search

Video Chapters on Search Results Page

The first new feature is the addition of video chapters to the search results page on YouTube. It is essentially an expansion of the video chapters features that the company introduced last year. It lets creators split their videos into multiple chapters that show up on the seek bar. As a result, it helps viewers to see the various sections of a video and jump to the most relevant part with ease.

So, until now, YouTube only showed the video chapters when users opened a video on the platform. However, after this update, the video chapters will start showing up right on the search results page to help viewers make an informed decision of whether to watch a video or not.

Video Snippets in Search Page on Mobile Devices

Coming to the second feature, it is a new one for YouTube’s mobile apps. Currently, when users browse videos on YouTube on desktops, they see short snippets of the videos simply by hovering their cursor over video thumbnails. So, with this update, YouTube will expand this feature to the search page of mobile apps. It will enable you to easily preview videos before watching one.

Translated Captions, Titles for Videos in Other Languages

Lastly, if users do not find relevant content for a particular topic on your local search page, YouTube will now show videos of other languages with automatically translated titles, captions, and descriptions. This way, users will be able to access more videos from global content creators on the platform.

These features are currently rolling out to YouTube desktop and mobile apps globally. Also, YouTube is experimenting with a new feature that shows relevant links and another content formats from Google Search between videos. It is currently available on mobile devices for users in India and Indonesia. Based on user feedback, YouTube will expand the feature to other countries as well.