If you visited YouTube late last week to look at cute panda videos you might have noticed that Web site had received a major redesign.

The new YouTube now sports a look that puts more emphasis towards channels than single videos that used to dominate the site. The home page now has a giant banner ad at the top of the page and another square ad on the upper right. Below the banner ad is a smaller navigation bar that shows the user's subscriptions and video uploads.

The left navigation bar links YouTube to other social media sites. There are links to FaceBook and Google+ and a small box with the user's personal details. You can see videos you've liked and links to My Channel and another box for subscriptions. You can even see videos that your friends have shared on FaceBook or Google+.

Users can also choose to watch videos in different channels or genres or "trending" videos. The far right column will show recommended videos based on the videos you've seen in the past. Watching individual videos will revert the page back to the familiar video page. However, Google has redesigned the video page to a gray background instead of the old white background.

"Today we're introducing a new homepage, channel design and a fresh coat of digital paint," the company said in a blog post.

"Behind every great video is a great channel, and with our announcement last month that more of them are coming to YouTube, we want to make it easier for you to find and keep tabs of what you want to watch."

The major redesign is part of Google's ongoing process of streamlining the company's websites to a more unified look based on the Google+ look. The new look is a way to ensure that users stay on the site to increase its advertising revenue. Instead of taking a few minutes to look at cat videos to distract you from a boring day at work, YouTube wants you to spend hours on the site. The site is also changing its advertising model to one where advertisers only pay when viewers watch the ads. Advertisers will have to produce eye-catching ads because YouTube also installed a feature that allows viewers to skip ads they find boring.

The new layout will take awhile to get used to but ultimately it's a design that will make YouTube and Google more money. Viewers can still get their daily dose of time-consuming videos for free.