On September 25, according to the reports, Google executives have been quietly negotiating with the short video app TikTok parent company ByteDance and Instagram parent company Facebook counterparts to obtain videos on these two platforms. Data is needed for indexing and ranking, which in turn strengthens its search capabilities.
Currently, the best results users see when searching are usually videos from Google’s YouTube. YouTube sometimes provides cloned versions of TikTok and Instagram videos. These negotiations show that, in the face of new competition and regulatory threats, Google is trying to keep its search engine relevant to more users.
TikTok is the most popular short video application in the world. Not only has it beaten YouTube and Instagram, but all of its practices are being copied by competitors. Google is well aware of how big TikTok and Instagram have become, and it wants to ensure that people use its search function to find and discover endless videos to show to their friends.
Searching for videos on TikTok or Instagram Reels on Google is now almost impossible, but according to people familiar with the matter, the world’s largest search engine wants to solve this problem. Of course, no one will readily accept Google’s bid without return.
Both TikTok and Instagram compete directly with YouTube, especially after the latter launched its short video app Shorts. It is reported that TikTok and Instagram are concerned that YouTube videos rank higher than their own videos, which is not surprising considering the antitrust lawsuits surrounding Google’s search engine over the years.
This is not the first time Google is interested in including TikTok and Instagram videos in search results. Last year, the company began testing a carousel called Short videos (carousel function), which can aggregate short videos on TikTok and Instagram for specific topics. If an agreement can be reached with TikTok and Instagram, with the improvement of search results and the integration of YouTube, these results may become more accessible.
Although Google has not reached any potential agreements with TikTok and Instagram, it has already carried out similar cooperation with Twitter. Such cooperation involves paying a licensing fee in exchange for displaying tweets with news stories and other popular topics. Of course, the existence of YouTube makes this type of negotiation more complicated. Unlike the situation with Twitter, Google itself is the owner of YouTube, and it is in direct competition with TikTok and Instagram.
