Google is making it easier to find and listen to audio content specific to your search interests, with playable episodes surfaced in results that start rolling out today.
Playable podcasts will show up in results when you use “podcasts” as a keyword in your search, in combination with other terms.
It’s intended to deliver relevant results freed from the confines of a dedicated podcast player, and Google also intends to extend this search feature to queries that don’t even specify “podcast” as it refines its algorithms.
Google is also going to be rolling out this inline playable results feature for the search function in Google Podcasts on the web, and for Google Assistant.
If you’re logged in, it’ll also sync your results so you can pick up from wherever you left off in the dedicated Google Podcasts app.
This should be good for discoverability, since it means that a much broader potential audience can stumble across your podcasts than would be possible with existing tools, and sample them on the spot.