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Introducing Google Video Sitemaps

...and how online video is going to be even more important to you in 2008 and beyond !!!

2007 was the year online video really hit the big time.

Google, who also have their own video platform called "Google Video" purchased rival video hosting website YouTube.com for a reported $1.6 billion in November 2006, as they just KNEW online video was going to be huge.

The during 2007 online video "exploded" with each week brining a new video hosting company and millions viewing the content, much of it user generated.

Roll forward to late 2007 and Google started to "shake up" the way they have traditionally provided search results at their iconic search engine.

Now, along with web page, you will also see relevant news items, images, related search terms and links to VIDEO.

For example:

Take a look at this search for Darth Vader: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=darth+vader

Google have named this UNIVERSAL SEARCH and during 2008 you will see them develop it even further.

So What Does This Mean To Me?

Well if you are just using Google as a search engine to find stuff, then you are going to have a richer experience in discovering information you are looking for, as Google is now providing you with relevant search results in multiple formats.

BUT if you are a website owner (from now on I call you a webmaster) then you are on quite a ride as you try and get your content indexed into Google!

As a savvy webmaster you KNOW that most visitors to Google do NOT pay attention to results beyond the FIRST page. Until "universal search", that meant your page had to rank in the first TEN web page links provided in the search results page, but preferably in the first THREE.

Enter "universal search" and suddenly your web pages are competing against entries for many different formats. The searcher at Google now has more choice!

As a webmaster you know it is tough getting your web pages listed (...let alone highly ranked) but at least Google have provided an easy way to mass submit your website pages to them with their "Sitemaps" submission tool....

Google Sitemaps:

Sitemaps are becoming increasingly important for web site owners looking to get their pages listed in the major search engines. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all provide you, the webmaster, with a Sitemap submission tool for indexing your web pages in their respective search engines.

It can be found in your Google Webmaster Tools account.

If you are NOT aware of site maps yet, then you should be! ..open a free Google Webmaster Tools account today.

Sitemaps are simply an XML file that lists URLs for a web site, along with additional information about each URL such as when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site.

It is this information that allows the major search engines to more "intelligently" crawl YOUR sites' pages.

Now I started this article by talking about video and that is where, as a webmaster, you should be taking some serious time to look at how you are going benefit from using it in 2008.

So Why The Fuss About Website Video?

( Side Note: As a digital media specialist I have been creating online video presentations for the last 5 years, and every now and then there is a MAJOR development in the field - and Google Video Sitemaps is one of them! )

Increasingly webmasters are adding video to their websites and it has never been easier to do so with YouTube and Google Video etc. willing to host them for you.

But in 2008 I believe we will see more webmasters adding video DIRECTLY to their own websites.

WHY? - Two quick reasons:

# 1 - Advertising

In 2008 Google are continuing to roll out advertising on the videos you host with them, and that is going to turn off many webmasters. What online marketer REALLY wants 3rd party adverts showing up in the videos that are meant to pre-sell their own products and services?

For more information on this topic read this excellent blog posting by Mark Glaser:

When Will Google’s ‘Big Project’ YouTube Bring in Profits?

(Please note - I am not against using YouTube for marketing purposes and in fact HIGHLY recommend you do using a great service like Traffic Geyser...)

# 2 - Universal Search

With the advent of Google's "Universal Search" the pressure is on for webmasters to adapt to new ways in getting top rankings for their relevant search terms and keywords.

When reading Google's help files concerning "Google Video Sitemaps" two statements struck me:

"...when you submit a Video Sitemap to Google, we will make the included video URLs searchable on Google Video."

BUT then they go on to say "...in addition, your video may also appear in other Google search products."

Do you understand what this means for you as a webmaster? Videos on YOUR domain can now have a better chance to get listed in Google's index!

So Why Use Google Video Sitemaps?

In a single word:

TRAFFIC!

Many online marketers know the value of video, its just letting search engine traffic know about it that has been a problem.

Sure, you can add videos to Google Video and YouTube and try to get them found when folks go directly to those sites to search for videos. Then with the advent of "universal search" highly rated videos at these two sites can appear in the search results, which is great.

But what I really want Santa to bring me for Christmas is the ability to have videos that are hosted on MY DOMAIN show up in Google Video and Google's main search index.

...I would like my domain to get the credit, the credit I do not get when I simply embed a bit of video code into a page from Google Video.

Well Happy Christmas!

Google have just given me the tool to do this :-)

Whilst I still use services like YouTube hosting my training/sales/pre-sales videos... I now use the popular Amazon S3 storage network to host the videos I want FREE FROM ADVERTISING.

(In fact I am so impressed with it my business partner and I created a software application for using Amazon S3 in our online businesses: Data Bucket Pro and we recently added support for Camtasia videos.)

Now with Google Video Sitemaps I can now submit descriptive information – such as a video’s title, description, duration, etc. – that makes it easier for users to find my videos. And when a search result includes my video through Google, the link will be to my URL for full playback.

My video URLs searchable on Google Video (and possibly Google Search) FANTASTIC...

Now this is still in BETA, so Google can't predict or guarantee when or if your videos will be added to their index, but they do claim that: "as we refine our product, we expect both coverage and indexing speed to improve."

So What Videos Can You Include?

Google can crawl the following video file types:

.mpg

.mpeg

.mp4

.mov

.wmv

.asf

.avi

.ra

.ram

.rm

.flv

Please note: All files must be accessible via HTTP. (NO streaming protocols are supported at this time, so NO live content via MMS and other media servers.)

How Can I Create a Google Video Sitemap?

The Google Video Sitemap uses the standard sitemap protocol, with additional video-specific tags.

In its simplest form, a Video Sitemap can include a single tag to let Google know there is a video playable at a specific landing page URL.

Optional fields allow you to specify other attributes of the video available on that page. The less information you provide in the Video Sitemap, the more Google will have to do to try to discover and extract that information.

Google may use text available on your video's page rather than the text you supply in the video sitemap, if this differs.

So it is in YOUR BEST INTEREST to add as much information as possible to both the page and the video sitemap!

Google Video Sitemap - Specific Video Tags

Required Tags:

<loc> The <loc> tag specifies the landing page (aka play page, referrer page) for the video. When a user clicks on a video result on http://video.google.com, they will be sent to this landing page.

<video:video> Defines that there is video content.

Optional Tags:

<video:content_loc> The URL of the actual video content.

<video:player_loc> A URL pointing to a player for the video. The most common case for this is with Flash video. The URL of the SWF file that plays your video should be specified in <video:player_loc> and the URL of the FLV (actual video file) would be specified in <video:content_loc>.

The required attribute allow_embed specifies whether Google can embed the video in the search results on http://video.google.com. Allowed values are "Yes" or "No".

<video:thumbnail_loc> A URL pointing to the URL for the video thumbnail image file. If you don't provide a thumbnail image, Google will automatically generate a set of representative thumbnail images from your actual video content. Using this allows you to suggest the thumbnail you want displayed in search results.

<video:title> The title of the video. Limited to 100 characters.

<video:description> The description of the video. Descriptions longer than 2048 characters will be truncated.

<video:family_friendly> Whether the video is suitable for viewing by children. Allowed values are "Yes" or "No".

<video:duration> The duration of the video in seconds. Value must be between 0 and 28800 (8 hours). Non-digit characters are disallowed.

So What Does A Google Video Sitemap Look Like?

On this page I have some videos: http://www.updatexp.com/free-videos.html (where they are served from a sub-domain media.updatexp.com)

If I want to create a Google Video Sitemap and include them it might look something like this (I have only included 2 videos in this example, but you'll get the point):

<url>
<loc>http://media.updatexp.com/xp-basics/windows-xp-accounts-pt1/windows-xp-accounts-pt1.html</loc>
   <video:video>
    <video:content_loc>http://media.updatexp.com/xp-basics/windows-xp-accounts-pt1/windows-xp-accounts-pt1.swf</video:content_loc>
    <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes">http://media.updatexp.com/xp-basics/windows-xp-accounts-pt1/windows-xp-accounts-pt1_controller.swf</video:player_loc>
    <video:description>Introduction to Windows XP users accounts</video:description>
    <video:title>Windows XP Accounts - Part 1</video:title>
    <video:thumbnail_loc>http://media.updatexp.com/xp-accounts-pt1.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
    <video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
    <video:duration>418</video:duration>
</video:video>
</url>

<url>
<loc>http://www.updatexp.com/free-videos.html</loc>
   <video:video>
    <video:content_loc>http://media.updatexp.com/windows-xp-accounts-pt1.wmv</video:content_loc>
    <video:description>Introduction to Windows XP users accounts</video:description>
    <video:title>Windows XP Accounts - Part 1</video:title>
    <video:thumbnail_loc>http://media.updatexp.com/xp-accounts-pt1.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
    <video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
    <video:duration>418</video:duration>
   </video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

You can download this file from here:

http://media.updatexp.com/videofeed.xml

You can download a .gif image of this code here:

http://media.updatexp.com/video-sitemap-image.gif

Please note: this is just a "sample" file showing a 2 videos listed in formats .swf and .wmv

Tips When Creating Your Google Video Sitemap:

# A Video Sitemap should contain only URLs that refer to video content. Video content includes web pages which embed video, URLs to players for video, or the URLs of raw video content hosted on your site. If Google cannot discover video content at the URLs you provide, those records will be ignored by Googlebot.

# Each video is uniquely identified by its content URL (the location of the actual video file) or, if a content URL is not present, a player URL (a URL pointing to a player for the video).

# Each Sitemap file that you provide must have no more than 50,000 video items and must be no larger than 10MB when compressed. An individual video file or thumbnail (specified in the <video:content_loc> and <video:thumbnail_loc> tags, respectively) can be no larger than 30MB.

# If you have more than 50,000 videos, you can submit multiple Sitemaps and a Sitemap index file.

# The URLs included in the Sitemap must have and associated robots.txt file set appropriately for UserAgent "Googlebot".

# If including a thumbnail I recommend a 80 x 60 JPEG image.

How Do I Submit My Video Sitemap To Google?

The process is just the same for submitting any site map file to the Google Index - use your Webmaster Tools account and navigate to the relevant website and click the "Sitemaps" link. You will now see that Google has added Video Sitemap as an option.

Here is an image:

google video sitemaps

Still not got a Google Webmaster Tools account yet? Then open one here:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tour/tour1.html

After submitting your Video Sitemap you may have to wait a couple of hours for it too be confirmed. When it is you will be able to see if there are any errors with your XML file.

You then just have to sit back and wait for the information to be submitted to the index(s).

Here is a screenshot of the Video Sitemap example file above, after being submitted to Google:

google video sitemaps submission

In Closing:

This is a BETA service so expect some problems, that said this is an exciting development and so far it all seems to be working OK for me.

Want some FREE software to create YOUR own Google Video Sitemaps ???

Video Sitemaps Pro - version 1.0

www.videositemappro.com -
The Worlds FIRST offline Google Video Sitemap Generator!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Nice work, Marc!" - Mike Abundo - Google Video Sitemap Generator

Thanks for reading!

Kind Regards

Marc Liron

Marc Liron - Microsoft MVP
www.marcliron.com
www.marclironblog.com
www.marctalkstech.com

Other recommended resources related to online video:

# Ken McCarthy's System Video blog.

# The SiteBuildIt "I Love SBI" page... - a GREAT example of one company harnessing user generated video!

12th December 2007