Yahoo! has introduced a somewhat controversial feature into their video search: inline viewing. The feature allows searchers to view videos directly on the search results page instead of taking them to the site where the video is hosted.

Of course, if you are one of those sites, you want that traffic to your site. But with the large number of videos that are embeddable, it means that videos are being viewed off-site anyway.

If you want to use the inline viewing feature, simply click “Play Now” under the thumbnail of the video search result you wish to see. A larger overlay window will appear, containing the selected video.

Bing also enables inline viewing, but as a preview. This is relevant since Yahoo! and Bing are working on getting their recently announced search deal approved by government antitrust regulators. In the meantime, Yahoo! pursues competitiveness in search, a smart move in case the deal doesn’t get approved.

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