Image Credit: Szabo Viktor

Jump straight to the part of a YouTube video you actually need to watch with new updates aiming to make searching YouTube quicker and more effective.

YouTube is getting a simple but useful upgrade. Soon videos that come up in searches will now have timestamped chapters, showing more clearly what subjects are covered in the video before users click through to see the whole thing.

The chapters feature will now be shown in search to help people find relevant content amongst the huge number of videos on YouTube. The previews have timestamps so you can easily see exactly whereabouts the video is going to begin giving you the information you need.

Each chapter will detail the exact topic being covered at that certain point. No more scrolling through or wasting time watching the whole video when a small portion would have done the job.

Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer at YouTube said: “No matter what you’re looking for, there’s a good chance we have it on YouTube. But we know viewers need to easily find the videos they’re looking for, and quickly access the information they need.

“Our teams have invested significantly in improving that search experience over the years, and in today’s instalment of our Innovation Series, we’re excited to share the latest technology to help you find what you’re looking for, from how-tos to DIYs.

“This complements the work we’re doing to raise videos from authoritative sources when people come to YouTube looking for news and health information.”

Image Credit: YouTube

YouTube are also aiming to make searching easier by introducing snippets to mobile, currently only available on desktop. Snippets let you see a moving preview of a video when hovering over the thumbnail.

The upgrade will also include better recommendations for translated videos. That means YouTube will show results of videos in English with automatically translated captions, description and titles if an alternative video in a user’s local language isn’t available.