Fast on the heels of Yahoo’s introduction of their video search tab, Google launched the beta version of Google Video Search.
Currently, Google’s new search feature indexes closed caption content from CSPAN, PBS, FOX News, and ABC, as well as a few others. Google anticipates this list growing quickly as video search becomes more common. Like any other search feature Google offers, Google Video Search gives users the option of searching general topics or refining their search to only look at a certain channel.
Google’s help page explains:
Can I search by show title?
Yes, you can; just type ‘title:’ in front of the program name when you do a search. For example, title:nightline or add a keyword title:nightline music.
Can I search for a particular channel?
You can do that, too; just type “channel:” or “station:” in front of the channel name when you do a search (make sure to use the station’s common name). For example, channel:abc president bush restricts your search to ABC.
A temporary drawback to GVS is once a query yields a result; users are restricted from playing the video clip. Google does expect this to change, however.
To populate their video index, Google spiders a broadcast’s closed caption content. Once indexed, the content is matched up to queries using the standard Google ranking algorithm. Results are ranked accordingly in terms of relevance and popularity.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
