Google announced last week that it will start surfacing podcasts alongside videos, images, news, and web pages related to a user’s search.
In response to our every search, Google brings up a wealth of related information in various formats – videos, news, tweets, recipes, and more. Now, Google is adding podcasts to the mix, making it easier to find and listen to them on Search.
As Zack Reneau-Wedeen, Product Manager for Google Podcasts explains in an announcement last week, “when you’re searching for a podcast about a topic on Google, such as ‘podcasts about Awkwafina’ or ‘Instant Pot recipe podcasts,'” Google will surface “playable episodes in Search results alongside web pages, news, images and videos.”
The episodes will appear based on “Google’s understanding of what’s being talked about on a podcast,” so that users are able to get even more information about their search topic – only in audio form instead of video or text. Soon, it won’t be necessary to use “podcast” as a search term. Google will automatically show relevant podcast episodes in search results.
Reneau-Wedeen also went on to explain that later on in the year Google will introduce the same functionality to its Google Assistant, and Google Podcasts for the web. Asking the Assistant for podcasts on a specific topic will surface relevant episodes while searching in Google Podcasts for web, will also allow users to listen to the episodes on the device they want to use.
Listening progress will be synchronised across devices “so you can pick up where you left off anywhere you use Google Podcasts,” explains Reneau-Wedeen.
Finally, to help podcasters build their audiences and businesses, Google will soon be giving publishers the ability to specify where people can listen to their podcasts. For example, they can limit listening to some apps or websites. This way, users can easily discover podcasts “that may be exclusively available by purchase or subscription” says Renaeau-Wedeen.
The above new features are already available since last week to people who are using English in the U.S.
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