Perficient Digital finds 83% of Videos in Search Results Carousel are from YouTube.
Many believe that Google favors it’s YouTube content before other video sites in their search results. The Wall Street Journal ran an analysis in July, 2020 and found “Google searches placed YouTube videos first in video carousel results by an overwhelming margin… [compared with] other video platforms.”
Another search ranking study performed by Perficient Digital back in 2017 concluded, “YouTube Videos rank far more frequently in the top 10 than videos that are either self-hosted, or hosted on other video platforms.” Recently Perficient has completed its second study on the subject and has reconfirmed their first findings.
Google denies that it gives any preference, in terms of search results, to the source of the content video. Gary Illyes, of Google, has been quoted on YouTube’s rankings being higher and performing better because of “good SEO, or their pages are structured in such a way that it’s easy for us to understand them and to rank.”
In Perficient’s most recent study, YouTube videos continue to “dominate the videos ranking within Google,” most noticeably in the video carousels. Their study concludes that the ranking algorithms on YouTube and in Google Search “are fundamentally different.”
Their study focused on Google Search and YouTube rankings for the same 6,100 different search entries on both of the websites. The main goal was to gauge “YouTube’s dominance in the Google SERPs and how video rankings vary between YouTube and Google.” Perficient was able to conclude with this data that the ranking algorithms of the two are very different and the search results of the “Top Ranked” videos in Google’s results did not match that of YouTubes rankings.
Google can feature videos in search results as snippets, rich snippets, carousels and in general organic search results. In their research, Perficient was able to conclude that YouTube videos will mostly appear in the carousel and sometimes within the rich snippets. Third party videos on the other hand were found more in the organic search results farther down the page.
Roughly 64% of the time, video rankings of the same search queries were different on YouTube and in Google. Perficient suggests these results are determined by differentiating user intent within search on each platform and monetary campaign strategies for each site.
Google has come under scrutiny for appearing to “favor its own content” within search results. This is at the heart of a current antitrust suit against Google, and the recent Perficient Digital study results provides more evidence to their rival’s claims.
One of the biggest takeaways from the study was Perficient’s video optimization recommendations for both YouTube and Google. They state that video is an under-utilized strategy by many marketers and is an incredible opportunity to rank higher in the search results.
According to Perficient, videos appear in Google results more often with “informational queries, tutorials and how-to queries, reviews and entertainment.” Search relevance and links are the major ranking variables for video.
If you are looking to utilize this widely neglected strategy of Video, Farfetched Studios LLC is here to help navigate the YouTube platform and optimize all your listings for greater placement in search results. Take the visibility of your video campaigns to new heights and wider views by favoring the YouTube curve in Google Search.