Comments on: YouTube’s search not yet powered by Google

By: Donald A. Coffin

Donald A. Coffin — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:35:21 +0000

Of course, what ATT got wrong in that series of ads in 1993 was that ATT would provide you all those things. They just didn’t forsee their bankruptcy.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 04:43:32 +0000

I do hope they integrate Google’s search software into YouTube soon. I usually don’t spend much time surfing YouTube, because if I search for something (like old SNL skits) I end up getting reenactments of these skits by various other YouTubers around the country, which is annoying and not very helpful. I know YouTube has the whole “community” thing going on, but it can be exhausting trying to wade through that sea of despair.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:41:44 +0000

Well, the search function usually works reasonably well – the problem in this case was/is the ampersand in AT&T. And unfortunately the YouTube search doesn’t let you escape the ampersand.

Google Video has generally better search but not nearly as many videos, so until the search engines are integrated, site:youtube.com should find any video that has been linked from outside YouTube, and for everything else you have to take your chances with the YouTube search.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:59:34 +0000

Ben, that gives it to you in huge format so you still have to tweak the URL (and then you have to remember how they display their URLs whereas if you click on share then you can just change “share” to “view”). In any case, clicking on the video seems like the fastest manner.:)

The main point is that if you don’t have the exact URL, but just have the topic of a video (e.g. someone sent you an attachment on email and you know it must be on YouTube and would like to post a link to it) then you can’t rely on their search function very well as things stand.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:25:47 +0000

Why didn’t you just look at the page source? I found the URL in approximately 15 seconds that way.