Google to Make Audio Content Searchable

Google is the biggest online search engine, and it has significantly changed the way we access content on the world wide web.

In the past few years, Google has successfully improved the way we people discover text-based and video content. With Google also making significant strides towards reading and understanding images, it leaves only one major area untouched by Google, i.e., audio content.

According to recent reports, that is also going to change very soon.

Google is planning to make audio content searchable and more easily accessible by its users.

In a recent interview, Zach Reneau-Wedeen of Google’s Podcast team reveals details of Google’s future plans to make audio content searchable and prioritize audio content the same way the company does images, videos, and text.

According to Zach:

“Right now Google is really good at giving you text and video related to your search query. With all the amazing work podcasters are publishing each day, there’s no good reason why audio isn’t a first-class citizen in the same way.”

If Google successfully manages to achieve this, it would have a significant impact on the podcast industry.

Apart from fetching podcasts results based on the relevant keywords in the title (which is still technically text-based search results), Google will be able to search through the audio podcasts and fetch relevant results.

In other words, instead of just podcast titles, theoretically speaking, people would be able to search the content of the podcast and fetch sections where a particular event, person, or topic is being discussed.

”This is something Google has done extremely well for text articles, as well as for images and even more structured data such as maps. We can help with audio, too. It has the potential to help people find the best content for them in that moment, better than they can today.”

Text-based content has always been popular. During the past decade, infographics and video content have also achieved great milestones. Making audio content searchable seems like the next logical step for Google.

Moreover, with the ever-growing library of podcasts, podcasters, and listeners, making audio content searchable will make life very simple and easier for Google users.