If you have ever found yourself scrubbing your way through a long YouTube video to reach the “good” part, you will appreciate the new feature YouTube has launched: Video Chapters. This feature uses the schedules that creators apply to their videos, allowing viewers to quickly skip to a particular portion of the video or rewatch a part of the video.
YouTube was spotted testing the video chapter in April, but now the feature has gone live for all iOS, Android, and desktop users.
Video chapters will automatically be enabled as timestamps and titles when creators add chapter information to their video descriptions. The first stamp should be marked 0:00, followed by the space, then the title of the chapter. Then, on the next line, you have to type the time stamp where the next chapter begins (such as “3:45”), then the space and title of that chapter. When you’ve finished adding chapters, you’ll save the changes, and the video chapters will be listed as you scroll through the video.
Videos must have at least three-time stamps of 10 seconds or more duration to use the feature.
To easily navigate a viewer on video chapters, YouTube included haptic feedback on a mobile phone so users will feel a “thump” that notifies them they’re moving into a new chapter. On platforms where haptic feedback isn’t available, YouTube uses a “snapping” behavior that will snap you into the beginning of the episode. That way, viewers who want to watch a precise spot near the chapter starts can wait for a moment before releasing so they are not snapped to the start of the chapter.
In addition, users on mobile devices and tablets can slide their fingers up and down while scrubbing – without releasing – to expose the scrubber bar and see where they are positioning the playpen.
YouTube said the feature received very positive feedback during testing but changed the product based on its earlier use.
For example, YouTube has since raised the number of chapters supported across devices, realizing that it is helpful to allow devices to determine how many chapters can be shown based on available screen space. It means that in videos with lots of captions, you can see more on desktop than on mobile devices, and more appear when you are full screen on your phone than when you are viewing the video in the smaller, portrait player.
Since the feature requires the creator to input the timestamp, you might not see it on every video just yet. But there are a few you can watch right now if you want to see the video chapters in action.
The new feature establishes YouTube as a better resource for long-form content as it makes videos less cumbersome to navigate. The feature can also increase user engagement with specific videos because viewers easily scroll through the parts they don’t want to watch. On the other hand, it can reduce the total viewing time, as viewers only watch particular sections of videos instead of their entire content.
YouTube says the new feature will not affect recommendations.
YouTube Chapters Not Working
There can be various reasons why YouTube chapters might not work for your video. Reasons can be
- You haven’t added a 00:00 timestamp
- Your channel has less than 1k subscribers
- Proper timestamps are not listed in chronological order
- Your channel has active copyright strikes
- Your video content could be potentially inappropriate to some viewers
- You have added less than three chapters
- One of your chapters has less than 10 seconds
How to Disable YouTube Chapters
Just change the first timestamp from 00:00 to something else. For example:
00:00 Intro ——> 00:03 Intro
Are Chapters Available in Every Country?
According to YouTube, yes, they are. They are available in every country and every language. But the chapter text will only be in the language of the creator. And it won’t be translated.
Benefits of Automatic YouTube Chapters
YouTube’s new automated chapters can save creators’ time during the upload process. In some cases, this may allow creators to use a feature they didn’t have time to take advantage of before.
Creating chapters for videos manually can be a bit time-consuming, especially for creators who produce lengthy content.
However, the chapters help in providing a better user experience. They make it possible to skim videos similar to how one would skim an article or a blog post.
Longer videos can touch on many different topics, while a particular viewer may be interested in only one or two items discussed. Chapters allow viewers to consume the parts of the video they want to watch and then consume more videos.
By enabling a more user-friendly video experience, the creator can attract more customers and increase their repeat audience. Not to mention there’s an SEO benefit associated with video chapters as well.
Captioned YouTube videos are eligible to appear as rich results in Google Search on mobile devices. It can significantly improve video visibility in search results and increase the viewership of Google searches.
However, like adding structured data to a web page, adding chapters to a YouTube video does not guarantee that it will be displayed as a rich result. Instead, it simply makes it eligible.
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