Thumbnails Beside Search Results

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   I've noticed these on several articles. Is the site video serendipitously causing Google to generate these and make the result stand out? Articles don't have any videos. Other results don't have them.
   
   
   

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2. 65

   Shesabutterflyposted 3 years ago

   I asked about this as well and did not get a response. I only see this on mobile search. Do you think it hurts our views if people are clicking on the video thinking they are going to be watching a video and they get something else?
   
   From what I can tell it is not niche site specific nor do all niche site articles have one. I wasn't sure if something was triggering it on HP's end or Google's. I assumed Google based on what I've seen for my articles. I have articles on various niche sites that show videos, but only one on each site my others do not. An article on Discover simply has a thumbnail photo.
   
   The only time I see a video icon for other sites is when they actually have a video, but I found it odd that only certain articles were popping up with these thumbnails in the search. Sometimes I see random sites with a photo thumb nail that is not an HP niche, but it seems random like the HP ones I've found.
   
   I don't know about your articles, but mine have the original HP created video which is why I thought it was strange when only a select few of my articles were showing the video/photo and not all of them, since they all have the same video.
   
   I also noticed most of the results for recipes on Delishably and other sites now show a large photo or video between the URL link and summary. On a laptop they all show thumbnail photos.

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   1. 65

      eugbugposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I've just got one article that had a video generated for it (that I know of, I didn't check them all) I'm seeing these thumbnails on desktop, I haven't checked on a mobile device.

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      1. 65

         Shesabutterflyposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I wonder what causes the inconsistancies. I use a Chromebook, which I thought would have shown the thumbnails considering it's Google based.
         
         I searched your article title to see if only certain articles come up on desktop vs mobile, but my results did not show the thumbnail for that one either on my laptop.

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3. 65

   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   I searched today for the title of my article and the thumbnails aren't appearing. Maybe Google were doing some experimenting?

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   1. 65

      Shesabutterflyposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I'm still seeing them on mobile. All my articles that had them previously and yours about the angles of triangles, but not on the one you initally posted.
      
      I actually like the thumbnail photos. I think more sites have them today too. Most of the articles that popped up about triangles had a thumbnail. I liked that I could see the different photos and pick a site based on how informative the picture looked. I don't like the false video icon for our articles though.
      
      Hopefully Google gets it all sorted out if this is some kind of experiement. I think the thumbnails could be useful for certain topics like when Google was pulling out lists and tables a few months back. I searched for one of my other articles that had a table and it now has a thumbnail which it didn't have two weeks ago. I wish it still displayed the table. I think it really helped draw people in. My traffic climbed quite a bit for that article after the table started showing in search results. Bing is actually displaying the table and a photo for that article, but I don't get nearly as much traffic from Bing as I do Google.

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4. 65

   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   On mobile, images in my triangle guide take forever to load, nearly 40 secons. I've compressed all images, so image size shouldn't be a problem. The video takes ages to load and obscures everything as it follows the reader down the screen. It isn't obvious how to close it. First you have to tap on it and this brings up an "x", but only if you tap on the central part, not the black bars either side. If it was me I'd back out straight away, because the user experience is so bad. Maybe that's why my views have halved compared to last year.

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   1. 65

      Shesabutterflyposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I was having that same problem with closing out of the video, but now I'm seeing an "x" right away while the ad tries to load which is nice, but it would be helpful if it stayed on the HP video too without having to click around for it.
      
      The video and in text ads are loading slower again for me across all devices. It definitely is a turn off waiting for things to load, especially if they are making the pages jumpy. It's easier to close out and find a new site that shows everything you want right away. I haven't noticed a problem with pictures, but most of my articles don't have more than one or two.

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