YouTube videos appearing in site search

[Jasp]

Youtube videos (totally unrelated to my site I might add) are appearing in my site search results.

I notice it is the same for webmaster world.
eg:
[google.com...]

The above URL show results as if doing a search on webmasterworld.com AND youtube.com, with results intermingled and little thumbnails for the youtube videos.

[Robert Charlton]

Moderator's note: Normally we don't discuss specific search terms or domains. In this discussion, let's limit specifics to "microsoft" and to a site search of webmasterworld.com.

The url posted above is from the WebmasterWorld site search performed using the "search" link at the top of the page. It can easily be reproduced by entering microsoft into the Google Search field on the WebmasterWorld search page...

[webmasterworld.com...]

I'm definitely seeing the YouTube videos.

However, when I try searching on Google.com, searching for...

site:webmasterworld.com microsoft

...with the number of results set at 100, this serp page [google.com]is what I come up with.

I get the same WebmasterWorld page results, but without the YouTube videos. What's different?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:36 am (utc) on Sep. 17, 2008]

[Jasp]

I get the same WebmasterWorld page results, but without the YouTube videos. What's different?

I should have said this issue is specific to the 'sitesearch=' parameter used in the search.

I use this because it is invisible to the user (it kinda locks them to your site), they can make another search on your site easily and it produces normal looking google search results.

I suspect google have deliberately broken this method of site searching precisely because it is invisible to the user, and they would rather people use the Custom Search Engine system instead. But that's just the cynic in me.

[rustybrick]

I suspect this has to do with Google's custom search engine being broken...

TechCrunch (I assume I can link to it) has coverage about the major Google CSE outage [techcrunch.com...]

[tedster]

There's now an update on that TechCrunch page: "A Google spokesperson says "A small number of our users had difficulty accessing their Custom Search Engines today. We have now resolved the issue..."

So this issue is different - Universal Search Video results are still getting blended inappropriately into sitesearch results (which is not the site: operator). And that seems to be happening "universally", not just for a few domains.