Google To Remove Video Thumbnails In Search Results When Video Is Not Main Content

Google announced it will remove the video thumbnail image from the search results snippet when that video is not the main content of the page. Google said this change will impact search appearance reported metrics for videos in the performance report in Google Search Console.

Here is the change:

Google said the “video thumbnails only appear next to Google search results when the video is the main content of a page.” “This will make it easier for users to understand what to expect when they visit a page,” Google added.

Google posted in the Search Console data anomalies page, “Google now only shows video thumbnails next to Google search results when the video is the main content of the page. You may see a change in search appearance reported metrics for videos in the performance report, video indexing report, and video enhancement report. Read more about the change in the blog post.”

Do you see the change yet? Glenn Gabe did not as of yesterday:

FYI, the change doesn’t seem to have rolled out yet. I’m still seeing the second format in the SERPs (when the video thumbnail appears to the right of the listing). That’s when the video is not the main content of the page. I’ll check more later. 🙂 https://t.co/Q6Guvo8UQo pic.twitter.com/NG2kK1Yy2e

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 13, 2023

Looks like this kicked in a bit later:

OK, seeing video thumbnail changes now based on Google’s announcement. Here’s an interesting SERP. The two sites have video on the pages, but it’s not the main content. Used to have video thumbnails, now removed. But, Google replaced the video thumbnails with image thumbnails. pic.twitter.com/PcAxVgPcvL

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 14, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update 2: Here are more people seeing this:

Whoa, Google wasn’t mucking around with this update. If you’re seeing ‘video’ search appearance clicks/impressions drop to zero, you’re not alone. This relates to them now only showing thumbnails if the video is considered the “main content”. More info: https://t.co/Cq7GnI3mp6 pic.twitter.com/ae3WoxVocW

— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) April 16, 2023

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