YouTube will have to continue to wait to be officially promoted to the helm of video search, after Google announced a delay to the end of Google Video. Google had announced that Google Video, which has been gradually closing down since 2009, would completely close down on April 29. Under pressure from panicked users, however, the company revoked the deadline, promising assistance with migrating all remaining videos to YouTube.
The closure comes as no surprise to SEO commentators, who have watched the relationship between Google and YouTube with interest. The wind-down of the company’s video hosting service as taken at a snail’s pace, allowing for a gradual shift in YouTube’s search functions. The popular video hosting site is now one of the more popular search engines available.
The YouTube-Google link has been a boon to those in SEO careers over the last few years. The relationship has provided optimisation experts with a certain amount of insight into how search works on YouTube, the existing knowledge of Google’s algorithms providing a sound knowledge base. This has resulted in a boom of reliable video optimisation techniques in the last couple of years. With YouTube now Google’s main video resource, tactics for video SEO are certain to become even more sophisticated.
Google reported that the shift in close date for Google Video was in response to user concerns about lost link value. For now, videos on Google Video remain in the search pages, with links remaining accessible, but the company encouraged a YouTube migration as soon as possible.
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