It is a well known fact that Google owns YouTube. Few people know, however, that Google is using YouTube to teach users about their services.

Maybe they are not marketing those services in the right way, or maybe people don’t consider the possibility.

We are here to rectify that. Over at the Google YouTube channel there are quite a few videos that should interest searchers and search engine marketers.

Google search

First: There are actually not that many videos telling you how to search the web using Google. It could be Google believes this is so easy that you do not need a video to tell you what to do. Or, it could be that the web search people are not as interested in videos as — let’s say — the Google Maps people.

The best search tips video we have found so far isn’t actually made by Google at all, but by DL.TV. It does feature Google’s Matt Cutts, though, so we will include it here anyway:

(By the way: WebmasterRadio.FM has a very interesting audio interview with Cutts on the future of search.)

In May Google published a looooong video on what Google does in the search arena. It is hosted by Marissa Mayer of Google:

Google Maps

Do you want to learn how to use Google’s amazing map tool? Here is an introduction:

Click here for more videos on Google Maps.

Google SearchWiki

If you are logged in to your Google account, you may “teach” Google to give you search results that are relevant to your needs.

Here’s a short introduction to Google SearchWiki:

Search Privacy

Google may gather an enormous amount of information about you and your search habits. This may ultimately lead to a publicity backlash for Google.

Indeed, there are already a lot of outspoken critics that believe Google is getting too much information and through that too much power over us.

Here is Google’s video response:

More Google videos on privacy.

Webmaster tools and search engine marketing

You might believe that Google would hate webmasters who try to improve their rankings in Google, thus “manipulating” search results.

That is actually not the case. As long as webmasters follow Google’s own rules, Google actually welcome the development of well designed web pages that help Google determine what the pages are about.

There is a whole section of videos devoted to webmasters.

Here’s an introduction to how Google rank sites:

There is also a video on how to get your site reincluded in Google’s index, should it for some reason have been banned by the search engine.

Click here for a catalog over all of Google’s videos.