Social Media

YouTube Testing ‘Search Chips’ On Desktop

YouTube is testing a new way to search for videos on desktop with Search Segments that allow users to refine results with suggested keywords.

For video creators, this feature may increase the chances of your content being discovered.

Search Chips are similar to the search suggestions at the bottom of Google SERPs and behave in a similar way.

Users can refine their video searches by clicking on the search segment to improve the relevance of their search results.

For example, a search for “WordPress” can turn into a search for “WordPress Ecommerce Website Tutorial” with the click of a button.

This is great for channels with videos that rank as long tail keywords.

For users, this may make it easier to find what they are looking for. They can start with a general topic and dig deeper using research slides.

YouTube Search Chips On Desktop – Experimental feature

YouTube is currently testing search segments as a beta feature for Premium members.

One of the benefits of YouTube Premium is the ability to test new features before they go live for everyone.

Search Chips is the newest experiment and one of the few I’ve seen that focuses on search results.

Previously, YouTube tested voice search on desktop as an experience for Premium users, which eventually rolled out to all users.

The same thing may happen to search chips if there is enough positive feedback.

What does “search in chips” look like?

If you’re a Premium subscriber, you may see the following dialog the next time you visit YouTube on desktop.

Screenshot from YouTube.com, March 2022.

Clicking “Try It” will take you to a page where you can activate the feature.

YouTube Premium allows you to test one feature at a time, but you can cycle through it as many times as you like.

YouTube test Screenshot from YouTube.com/new, March 2022.

The animated example on YouTube is much more lively than the feature actually looks.

Search chips are really just keywords in bubbles that appear below the search bar.

Sticking with the same WordPress example, here’s what the YouTube SERP looks like with search segments enabled:

YouTube test Screenshot from YouTube.com, March 2022.

From there you can click on the search slide to narrow the results even further.

However, you can only improve the results by one level. So you can’t keep clicking the chips to fill in more suggestions.

I’ve found that Search Chips won’t populate at all if your search isn’t broad enough. If you start by entering “WordPress free website tutorial” into the search box, for example, YouTube won’t show any slides.

YouTube search chips are in testing for a limited time

YouTube is testing search segments from now until April 14th. We’ll probably see the feature rolled out more widely in the following months.

Another potential use case for search chips is keyword research. YouTube doesn’t say what the suggested keywords are based on, but they likely come from related searches.

If so, that’s another set of data you can use to see what people are searching for.

The keywords suggested in Search Slides aren’t always the same as the autocomplete suggestions, so you might find some ideas you haven’t come across yet.


Source: Youtube

Featured image: Postmodern Studio/Shutterstock

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