Optimizing
Video for Google
"In a few months, we will discontinue support for
uploads to Google Video. Don't worry, we're not removing any
content hosted on Google Video - this just means you will
no longer be able to upload new content to the service."
Michael Cohen, Product Manager - Google Video
January 14, 2009
What does this mean? It means you can either
use other video search engines (including YouTube), or host
video files on your own web server. Both sides have pros and
cons, but this statement means that creating a video sitemap
is an obvious advantage of hosting video files on your own
web server.
Video sitemaps: share your videos with Googlebot and
the whole world
In December 2007, Google offered a video sitemap - an extension
of the Sitemap Protocol that helps provide Google with more
information about your video content. Google promised this
would help videos get picked up by the Googlebot and be fully
searchable on Google Video.
If you type "Madonna" or "Matt
Cutts" into Google Universal Search right now, you will
see that 2-4 of 10 results on the 1st results page are powered
by YouTube or Google Video, which means your video can also
be found in Google Web results. In many cases, the video results
can catch many more eyes and result in many more clicks than
plain text listings, so take your time deciding if they can
be helpful for your online business.
For now, Google is the only search
engine that provides support for video sitemaps; but as it
often happens in the industry, other search engines might
be on the way.
How to create a video sitemap
The concept of the video sitemap is the
same as those of the html: you list the content you want to
be indexed, and submit the sitemap to the search engine (Google
in our case).
All you need to create a video sitemap is to take an example
and substitute sample URLs by your real files' data.
Here is a sample of a Video Sitemap
entry using Video-specific tags and the information they should
report:
©Google Webmaster Center Help http://www.google.com/support/webmasters
The landing page and the location of the
video file tags are obligatory, so your shortest sitemap will
consist of 3-4 lines. Although other tags are optional, our
advice is to enter all this information, because it will help
your video files rank higher for the target keywords.
There can be up to 50,000 video URLs in a sitemap and the
file must be no larger than 10MB uncompressed. Compatible
video types are .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi,
.ra, .ram, .rm, and .flv. The files must be available directly
via HTTP.
Submit the video sitemap to Google
Once you have created your sitemap file,
let Google know about it - submit it directly from Google
Webmaster Tools account (you may need to register it if you
don't have one yet).
After your submission, check the sitemap's
status. (Google needs about 5-50 min to check it.) If you
receive an error, take a look at the details - Google will
explain the mistakes that you made.
After you fix your sitemap and Google
accepts it, you finally have something to show the world.
Tips & Tricks
1) There's no Google - approved video sitemap generator
Google doesn't recommend any special video
sitemap generator. What should you do if you have a lot of
video content to upload? Creating a sitemap by hand is a pain.
Google lists third-party sitemap generators in its help file,
though it's hard to understand which of them are capable of
creating video sitemaps.
The good news is that you don't need to
submit the sitemap each time you change it - Google regularly
picks up changes in the sitemaps it knows about.
2) Make your own thumbnail
Load your own thumbnail for the video and
specify its location in the sitemap. If you don't, Google
will choose the fragment from your video file at its discretion.
A thumbnail is valuable; it announces your
video, and plays a main role in a visitor's decision whether
or not to click your file. So, it's up to you - give your
visitors an idea with the 80*60 pxls picture or entrust the
choice of your video fragment to Google.
3) Specify the sitemap location in your robots.txt file
To do this, simply add the following line
to the sitemap:
Sitemap: <sitemap_location>
The <sitemap_location> is the complete
URL to the Sitemap e.g. http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
It doesn't matter where you place
this tag in your sitemap since this directive is independent
of the user-agent.
About the Author
Lana Ischenko, Associate Writer for SEOMixTour.
The SEOMixTour newsletter has been issued by Web CEO, LTD
since January 2009. Web CEO, LTD is the developer of Web CEO,
the leading SEO software program that includes 12 powerful
tools for search engine marketing, web site promotion and
maintenance, and web traffic analysis. Website address: http://www.webceo.com
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