A video carousel, or video results block, is a group of videos Google shows within web search results when it judges video useful for the query. Many come from YouTube, but videos hosted on other sites can appear too. Google may also show key moments, links to specific timestamps within a video, which can be defined by chapters or structured data.
What makes a video eligible
Google needs to find the video, understand it, and be able to show a thumbnail. Its video guidance stresses that the video should be on a page where it is the main content, embedded with standard HTML, with a thumbnail and metadata available.
- A watch page where the video is the main focus
- VideoObject structured data or a video sitemap
- A stable, crawlable thumbnail URL
- Allowing Google to fetch the video file
Key moments
Key moments let searchers jump to a part of a video. On YouTube, chapters with timestamps in the description can provide them. For self-hosted video, Google supports Clip and SeekToAction structured data. Google may also identify moments automatically.
YouTube versus self-hosting
YouTube videos tend to appear in carousels often, but clicks go to YouTube. Self-hosted videos on your site send clicks to your domain but require more setup to be indexed. Many SaaS companies do both: publish on YouTube for reach and embed on a dedicated page with a transcript.
Example
A setup walkthrough with chapters
Hypothetical API platform Hookmeadow publishes a YouTube walkthrough of connecting its webhooks to a CRM, with chapters for each step. The same video is embedded on a docs page with VideoObject markup and a full transcript. Search results begin showing key moments for “set up webhook retry” queries.
Common mistakes
Embedding videos on pages about something else
Google is less likely to treat a video as the main content of a page that is mainly about other things.
Questions
It is not strictly required, but Google recommends it to help it understand the video and show enhanced features.
