YouTube Search Update: Chapter Previews & Improved Recommendations

YouTube Enhances Search with New Features

YouTube has unveiled two significant updates designed to improve content discovery for its users. These enhancements focus on providing more visually informative search results and broadening access to videos in different languages.

Visual Search and Chapter Previews

Previously available on desktop, the ability to preview video content by hovering over a thumbnail is now extended to mobile devices. Furthermore, mobile users can now browse the individual chapters within a video directly from the search results page.

This allows users to quickly navigate to the specific section of a video that interests them most.

As Pablo Paniagua, Director of Product Management, explained in a blog post, this feature is particularly useful for instructional content. For example, users seeking a sourdough recipe can easily jump to the kneading section.

Expanded Language Accessibility

The platform is also improving the discovery of foreign language videos. If a video is available with captions in a user’s preferred language, it will be recommended, even if the original video is in another language.

Initially, this will focus on supplementing search results with English-language videos featuring captions in other languages, with plans to expand language support in the future.

Search Result Complements and Testing in Select Regions

In India and Indonesia, YouTube is currently testing a feature that integrates links to relevant content from Google Search within the video search results.

This is intended to address situations where sufficient high-quality video content isn’t available to fully answer a user’s query.

Google already offers a similar feature allowing users to skip to specific moments within videos. Previously, Google also experimented with recommending short-form videos from platforms like TikTok and Instagram directly within its search engine.

Context of Ongoing Algorithm Discussions

These search updates arrive amidst ongoing discussions regarding YouTube’s search algorithm. Recent research from Mozilla suggested the algorithm may continue to promote problematic content.

Mozilla’s study, based on data collected through the RegretsReporter browser extension, indicated that user “regrets” regarding videos were 60% higher in non-English speaking countries.

However, a YouTube representative stated that the new features were developed independently of the Mozilla report, focusing on improving user experience and content discovery.

According to a YouTube spokesperson, the development teams have been working on these features for months with the primary goal of assisting users in finding the content they need, such as tutorials and DIY guides.