Google is negotiating deals with TikTok and Instagram to index and rank their contentspecifically content in video format, in search results.
By reaching an agreement with Facebook and ByteDance, Google would become the world’s largest video search engine.
While most of the details of the potential deal between Google and Facebook and ByteDance’s platforms are still unknown, it could be similar to the one that would be formed between Google and Twitter in 2015, in which Google gained access to tweet data for immediate indexing.
Should an agreement be reached between Facebook, ByteDance, and Google, content creators on these platforms would have access to one of the largest organic traffic channels that currently exist, as it is currently not possible to find TikTok or Instagram videos on Google. This would be a great opportunity, as it would offer access to a new way of gaining visibility and gaining more followers.
This deal would also work in Google’s favor, as it would have access to billions of new videos to index, which will ultimately allow the content index to expand, allowing Google to become a destination for users searching for videos of this type. This would lead to a increase in overall search volume on Google
However, this new visibility channel may not have been to the liking of all content creators. In some cases, users of Instagram and TikTok may not look favorably on this new channel handing over data to Google that the engine needs to index the videos on its search results page.
In addition, Google owns YouTube, which competes for much of the audience of short-form video viewers, so it’s understandable that many creators, with established channels on Instagram and TikTok, are reluctant to share this information without receiving something of value in return.
In the case of Twitter, Google pays an annual licensing fee in exchange for indexing tweets as soon as they are posted on the platform, so it is possible that the deal with Instagram and TikTok has a similar compensation clause.
