Google might bring auto-playing videos to search results

It’s all about videos these days, and the tragic news is that Google is testing auto-playing videos in search results related to TV shows and movies.

Some love auto-playing videos, but most hate them. I personally think it works well with certain platforms like Instagram, but with others… well, not so much. If you are on Facebook, for instance, you probably know how annoying these auto-playing videos can be. Unfortunately, tech giants seem to think that auto-playing videos are an indispensable component in making their websites more “video-centric,” and worse yet, Google seems to be one of them.

According to The SEM Post, Google has been testing auto-playing videos with search results related to music videos, TV shows, and movies. Essentially, for some users, search queries like “Justice League movie release date” or “Game of Thrones” would bring up an auto-playing video right inside the Knowledge Panel on the right side. As is the case with Instagram and Facebook, these auto-playing videos play with the sound off (thank God), and they don’t play on a loop (again, thank God).

Curiously enough, however, some of these videos aren’t official clips from official sources. Google is only testing this feature after all, so it may just need some further polishing, but this could be a sign that Google is looking to expand its paid search promotion service, AdWords. For example, you could pay Google to have your video auto-play for related search queries. That might be my worst nightmare.

The online publication reached out the search giant, and it looks like while Google is testing auto-playing videos, we won’t be seeing an official announcement anytime soon:

We are constantly experimenting with ways to improve the Search experience for our users, but have no plans to announce at this time.

These auto-playing videos only show up only for desktop search results, and although they’re very annoying, some adblocking tools can disable auto-playing videos online. So if you are one of the unfortunate ones to have been selected for Google’s new experiment, you might want to invest in a good adblocker.

Do you see auto-playing videos on your desktop search results? What are your thoughts on Google’s new experiment? Let us know by leaving a comment below!