Google appears to be testing a new video-related feature. TheSEMPost has reported that it has seen auto-playing trailer among the Google search results for certain current movies.
TheSEMPost found the autoplay videos on the Google results pages for at least two upcoming movies: The Lego Ninjago Movie, which will hit theaters on September 22, and Justice League, which will arrive two months later on November 17. In both cases, the trailers for the movies appeared on the right-hand side of the screen and began playing automatically with the sound turned off. My attempts to recreate this feature proved unsuccessful, though I did have the option to watch the trailers directly from search pages so long as I manually began playback. I suppose I’m not cool enough to be in the test group.
The autoplay videos arrive without ads, TheSEMPost says, and they appear to work on desktop devices only. Interestingly, a search for “Justice League trailer” does not give users the option to watch a trailer directly from the results page, while a search for “Justice League” does.
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“We are constantly experimenting with ways to improve the Search experience for our users, but have no plans to announce at this time,” a Google spokesperson told TheSEMPost.
Autoplay is a controversial feature on the internet, so for now, I wouldn’t expect this feature to pop up as anything more than an experiment. That said, we could get a few more details in the near future. The BBC, reporting on this update, wrote that “Google will reveal more about its plans on Thursday.”
