Is video content a ranking signal for Google?

Published: January 9, 2019

Yes, according to an official statement, Google uses the information found in video bytes (content) to extract meta data and other information about the video. Keep in mind that video bytes are used only for video rankings (i.e. on YouTube). This factor is almost useless for Search, because Google seems to be ranking YouTube videos in the vast majority of cases. Here’s Google official statement:

“We need this information to verify that there is actually a live video on your landing page and to extract metadata and signals from the video bytes for ranking” source