After investing heavily in promoting search carousels, Google appears to be cutting down the time that these search features appear.

Data from two independent search software suggests that the Google has reduced the number of occasions that image and video carousels appear in the search results by as much as 30%.

The development could have a major impact on the traffic of brands that have used these features as a way to secure prominent placements in the search engine results.

Video Transcript

Hello, I’m Rebecca ,and in this episode of Digital Minute we’re exploring claims that Google is now showing fewer video and image carousels in the search results.

In recent years, Google has tried to introduce more video and image content using carousels, but research by two SEO software companies suggests that the search engine is actually using this feature much less than it used to.

Separate data from two SEO software platforms reveal that since mid-November, Google has cut the number of times that it shows an image or video carousel in the search result by as much as 30% on both mobile and desktop searches. The drop seems to have occurred around mid-November.

It’s a change that could have big traffic implications for brands that were featuring prominently in these carousels. They were a particularly effective way for brands that invested in video content to rank highly in the search results, even if they didn’t rank in the standard Google results.

The findings haven’t been confirmed and the reasons aren’t yet clear – although many will speculate that carousels may have taken too much attention away from ad listings.

Thanks for watching, I’m Rebecca Johnson and that was your Digital Minute.

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