You may get frustrated in getting any traffic from Google Search when you are running a video content based website. There is over hundred thousands of video available on the web, Google might not able to discover, access and index every single video on the internet. So how do you get your video discover by Google? The answer is create a Video XML Sitemap.
Luckily, Google has introduced Video XML Sitemap on Decembre of 2007, which is an extension of the Sitemap Protocol that helps make your videos searchable through Google Video Search. The Video XML Sitemap use to provide information of your video content to Google Crawler, tell the crawler what exactly your video is.
Creating A Simple Video XML Sitemap
Open Notepad or any web develppment tools and start to create a very simple Video XML Sitemap as shown at below:
[xml]
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
</urlset>
[/xml]
Then start to write every of your video in one URL entry as shown below:
[xml]
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>
<video:video>
<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg
</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title>
<video:description>Alkis shows you how to get perfectly done steaks every time</video:description>
<video:duration>600</video:duration>
</video:video>
</url>
</urlset>
[/xml]
As shown at above, the “loc” tag is used to inform Google that, the landing location of your video. The “thumbnail_loc” used to tell Google about the location of your video thumbnail. The “title” tag used to indicate the title of your video, the “description” tag used to describe the content of your video and lastly the “duration” tag used to tell Google about the length of your video.
Please keep in mind that, every single URL entry must contained the following items:
- Title
- Description
- Thumbnail URL
- Raw video file location and/or the player URL (SWF)
- Play page URL
- Duration (Strongly recommended)
Besides, every sitemap cannot contained more than 50,000 URL entries.
File Format Accepted By Google Search
Following are the video file formats that accpeted by Google Search Crawler:
- .mpg
- .mpeg
- .mp4
- .m4v
- .mov
- .wmv
- .asf
- .avi
- .ra
- .ram
- .rm
- .flv
- .swf
Submit To Google
Once you done your Video XML Sitemap, you can submit it to Google via Google Webmaster Tool.