Video SEO - Why are my videos not being indexed?
-
Hello All,
I work on a site that has a lot of videos. The trouble is none of them are ranking.
Here is an example of a page with a video on.
If you click the play button you will see
But none of these videos are being indexed, as you can see here.
Is it because these videos are just mp4 files, rather than being embedded players (like SEOmoz use for instance)?
Would embedding videos through Viddler / Wistia / Youtube etc help?
Or is there some other issue at work here?
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Rich
-
Sounds good Rich!
Sorry, i couldn't find the video sitemap! Definitely add that to the robots.txt file as well (assuming it's a separate sitemap).
Yeah - Google don't like the olde multiple videos per page - can only include the one.
Let me know how you get on - i'm an ale man all the way :).
Cheers,
Phil
-
Hi Rob Phil (it's almost 5:30),
Thanks for such a detailed answer.
Off the bat we are going to fix points 2 & 3 (redoing the video delivery is a not feasible at this point in time) and see how that fixes us up.
We do have a video sitemap but it is structured to have multiple videos per <loc>, so think this is not helping!</loc>
If fixing these points don't help then we will look at the video player.
Anyways, thanks again... and are you a larger or ale drinker?
Rich
-
Following up on my point - If you want to move away from using your own player - then Wistia or Viddler etc is a totally acceptable solution. It's not neccessary - as there are lots of good free video players out there you can use (rather than a paid solution), but it would be a fine way of sorting out the current problems with the JS and lightboxes.
Don't use YouTube though - as any video results will link back to YT - not your domain.
-
Hey Rich,
So there's a few problems here which i think are preventing your videos from being indexed.
- The main one is around your bespoke video player and the Javascript / Lightbox delivery - which, while potentially elegant from a users perspective, isn't great for Google. Currently the flash video player is only being delivered by a JS trigger and Google probably aren't picking it up.
- You have more than one video on each page (and tons of duplicate videos) - All the "play product video" links at the bottom of the page are more lightboxes, which means you have 34 .mp4 files visible within the page source. Therefore, which video should google rank for the page?! It's not clear and with each video also replicated across many pages, it becomes a minefield for the Robots to navigate.
- No Video XML sitemap
To get things fixed, i suggest you implement either a static flash player file within the base HTML (.swf or .flv) or do the whole thing with HTML5 video elements and try and find a way to "reveal" the video file without using lightboxes or JS. (i would plump for the latter).
You should also fix the "play video" links throughout the rest of the page to static HTML links - rather than lightboxes with more videos.
Lastly, of course, submit an XML video Sitemap. He's an example for the page you included - replicate this for the rest of your pages.
<loc>www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-coffee-table/1149.html</loc>
video:thumbnail_lochttp://static.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/media/gbu0/prod350/rus18-4f0f1c68245c6.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
video:titleRustic Solid Oak 4 Drawer</video:title>
video:descriptionThe Rustic Oak Four Drawer Coffee Table features a traditional farmhouse styling with ample storage space</video:description></video:description>
video:content_lochttp://video.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/rustic/Rustic-Solid-Oak-4-Drawer-Coffee-Table.mp4</video:content_loc>
video:duration56</video:duration>
video:publication_date2012-03-14T18:30:15+00:00</video:publication_date>
video:family_friendlyyes</video:family_friendly>
video:tagSolid Oak 4 Drawer</video:tag>
video:liveno</video:live>
If you change all that and it still doesn't work - let me know.
If it does work, you owe me a beer
All the best,
Phil
-
Hi Rich
Not sure if you done this yet but have you looked at adding the videos to your website map ?
There is a great post in Google Webmaster section about how to add videos to your sitemap so that search engines can know more about the videos and this may lead to them being indexed.
The link to the post is http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80472
Hope it helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO for Videos and Infographics
Hi Mozers, When optimizing videos and infographics does it helps to put the word "video" or "infographic" in the browser title and H1? Any guidance is much appreciated! Yael
Image & Video Optimization | | yaelslater0 -
Localized SEO for Restricted Niches
Sorry for the hypothetical, it's a sticky subject! Suppose I work for a company that offers Online Widget Counseling. Due to the fragile nature of Widgets, this service is only legal in one state and must be administered by a registered and regulated Widget Counseling company. Widget counseling is only available online so there is no competition from bricks and mortar stores. Unfortunately the SERPs are dominated by unscrupulous black market outfits offering Widget Counseling illegally. If we were to use intensive and strong local signals, could we expect the SERPs to favor our pages for searches "in or about" the state in which we are registered? Thanks for your help -SEO Newbie
Image & Video Optimization | | bbarber570 -
LOCAL SEO: Franchise --> One storefront. Multiple territory. Multiple listings?
An interesting problem came our way, and I'd love your help in solving it. An individual I'm chatting with owns and manages a number of territories of a service-based Franchise business around Eastern Iowa.**His territory covers multiple cities and zips. He services all of those places, but does not have a physical presence in all. There is one company office. But he has local numbers for each territory.**The corporate franchise's website is dynamic. It shows the 'local' number and information based on the visitor's location. Basically, little microsites for each franchise territory.Three years ago he set up individual Google Places pages for each territory, using a PO box address and the local phone numbers. The Google listings are set up not to display an address. The kick is -- those addresses are now expired. Those Google Local listings still exist, and drive considerable traffic in each target city. As you can imagine, this also causes havoc on his other citations. There are scattered (YP, Yahoo, Yelp, etc) listings for each address. Their name in GetListed brings up all five different addresses, each with a number of web properties already claimed.Now that I've offered to help, I need to determine the best way to move forward. Suspend the verified listings with hidden addresses and move to a single listing for the office location? We could add all of the zips in manually, but it would cover a very wide range, and could lose its rank in local SERPs. Even with a well-optimized description. And the local numbers would likely not show up. Keep the listings. Don't touch them at all. The owner is looking to maintain the look and feel of a local business in each of his territories. That is difficult to do with a single listing. Assuming we decide not to touch the active listings (option 2), what will we do for other listings? Do we claim a local Yahoo listing for each location? Just for the corporate office? Would love to hear how others have attacked the multi-territory franchise problem, or would in this case.Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | SocialJosh0 -
Posting a video on your site and also on youtube
Hi, Quick question. I have a content page which contains a youtube embedded video. I want to rank that page for a specific keyword phrases on google. I also want to rank the video youtube url aswell for the exact same specific keywords. Does anyone from experience know if this would be considered duplicate content (same video) or work? Same video on both URLs but the video on my site has additional valuable content surrounding the video. Regards, Jerry
Image & Video Optimization | | MBASydney1 -
Doing SEO for multiple clients, who should make the content?
I realize that since content marketing is (or can be) a part of SEO, then it would logically follow that it's up to whoever is doing the SEO to create the content*. And when it's 1 person or a small group of people that work for 1 company, doing its SEO, that makes perfect sense. But I'm having a little trouble wrapping my mind around how that's supposed to scale up for an outside agency responsible for the SEO of 5 or 10 or 50 other companies. One of the biggest factors in my misunderstanding of the system is the reasoning for creating content in the first place. I absolutely understand how a professional in some field (let's say dentistry for example) could write up some insightful, accurate blog post about why flossing is great. After all, a dentist does (or should, hopefully) have a level of expertise on the subject that most people don't have. That blog post is a tangible addition of value to the website for anyone curious about the subject. But why would anyone want to read a blog post about wisdom teeth written by just some random person at a marketing company? If that person has the time to do a lot of research and BECOME something of an authority on the subject of dental care, then that's fine. But what if they also need to create content for clients that do plumbing, car repairs, and cooking? I don't really see how someone can become enough of an expert on enough subjects and still have any time to do the other parts of their job. Maybe I'm just expecting too much, but I sort of feel that the internet is already full enough of advice and information from people that have no idea what they're talking about, so content from someone that's not an expert (but is a marketing person that the expert hired) seems... frivolous to me. So to get back to the actual question, should/can an SEO ask their clients to create at least some of their own content, or is it the SEO's responsibility to generate all the content, even if it's not always stellar? Or is it just one of those "Could God make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it? Yes, he could, and then he would lift it" (or however that saying went) sorts of deals? Thanks for the feedback, this can all be kind of overwhelming for me at times. *"Creating content" in this specific case meaning writing blog posts, making videos, etc.
Image & Video Optimization | | BrianAlpert781 -
How To Do SEO For Google Local Listing?
Hi, I have been reading around but i still don't understand how we can rank better for local search listing from Google place. I have tried: Adding keywords to descriptions
Image & Video Optimization | | chanel27
Adding the max of 10 photos And also get my customers to comment on my Google place listing leaving testimonials. Is there any tips? 🙂0 -
Video Sitemap, Video Location
I'm a link builder, so some of this stuff on-page stuff is out of my comfort zone. I've got a client who I'm doing a video sitemap for, as well as Schema integration. One of the requirements on the video sitemap is video location. They're hosting all of their videos privately at Vimeo, and embedding them on their website. Is there a URL that Vimeo has for engines, because the primary URL on Vimeo is blocked because of their permissions (private). Any suggestions on a work-around on this? Again, I'm a link builder and out of my comfort zone, so I apologize for the dumb question 🙂
Image & Video Optimization | | TommySwanson521 -
Schema or Google Video Sitemap
Hey. I have a few hundred pages with videos on them. I want to have rich snippets with the thumbnail and such in the search results. Should I focus my time on Schema or building out a solid sitemap? Your feedback is appreciated! Tommy Swanson
Image & Video Optimization | | TommySwanson520