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 Newsletter Index http://www.webceo.com/newsletter