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
-
Already ranking high for blog, should I produce video?
I run a website with affiliate links (reviews) and successful YouTube channel. Most of the time we lost the YouTube video review and text review at the same time. I’ve created a couple posts that rank high without a video. But now they are proving to be successful, I’m wondering if it makes sense to now produce a video. If so, do I use the exact keyword? Or a variation? Only about 10% of our YouTube views come from Google Search. Most of our blog traffic is organic.
Image & Video Optimization | | dandoadvisors0 -
Embedding videos for SEO
What is the best practice for having videos on a website in terms of increasing SEO? Embedding YouTube videos is probably the easiest solution, but does that help with SEO? The other options would be to use a third party or build one. What have other people found to be the best option? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | STP_SEO0 -
Is there an index of local blogs somewhere?
I'm trying to find (and evaluate) blogs in my area, but searching for them via google has been pretty tedious so far. Does anyone know of a website where I can locate blogs in my area? For example, ideally, I'd like to go to something like www.blogfinder.com, type in Tampa and get a list of all the blogs dedicated to this area. Anyone know of anything like that? Thanks, Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Local SEO, how much additional information to fill out beyond NAP
Hello, When filling out citations, do you flush out each site with extra profile information like picture, categories, service area, etc or do you just fill out NAP and website link and move on? I'm concerned about the time factor but I want to do good SEO that lasts into the future. What do you skip and what do you add?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Video SiteMap Updating
Hi all! We noticed some issues with our sitemap and so we went through and optimized it to re-submit it. At the same time, it seemed prudent to optimize our video sitemap, however we probably should have thought through that more as we are seeing the numbers of indexed videos going down. Why and what we changed: We recently moved from flash/flv video to Html5 videos with webm and mp4. So it seemed prudent to change our sitemap which was using the old flv videos. At the same time updating our videos with more SEO friendly titles seemed prudent. So far our indexed videos from the video sitemap have gone from 70,000 to 28,000, so: A. How much does a video sitemap depend on the URL of the web page versus the title and the video itself? I am assuming that Google sees a new file extension and title and assumes that it is a completely new video and that might be why they are de-indexing the old ones? I suppose we could go back and put the old sitemap to the old flv videos back up, but maybe we should just tough out the change and wait for the new videos to be indexed. Thanks!! Craig
Image & Video Optimization | | TheCraig0 -
Video SEO - Youtube vs. 3rd party hosting with Video Sitemap
We need some feedback on the best place to upload videos. Should we be uploading our videos everywhere (YouTube, Metacafe, Vimeo, etc.)? Note: Currently we are using a 3rd party video video hosting solution called Treepodia. Previously we used Wistia. Both host our videos, and submit a Video Sitemap through Webmaster tools. When one of these videos shows up in search results and somebody clicks on it, they are directed back to our website. Are we competing against ourselves if we upload videos to other networks like Youtube, etc. if we are already submitting a Video Sitemap through a 3rd party? I've noticed we rank higher in Google Videos search for our Youtube videos vs. our 3rd party hosted videos. Also, how do Youtube video views tie into this situation... we used to embed videos via Youtube embed code. Now we seem to be missing out on the extra views we were getting by doing so. Ultimate question: host videos through a 3rd party and submit a video sitemap OR host videos on Youtube and embed on our website?
Image & Video Optimization | | tennisexpress0 -
Is there a free/cheap self hosting video site? Can't afford wistia, but want to do it for the seo benefits
Is there a free/cheap self hosting video site? Can't afford wistia, but want to do it for the seo benefits
Image & Video Optimization | | anchorwave0 -
SEO for a eSmoking eCommerce Client ?
We have a client, for whom we built a Magento website, where he is selling eSmoking products like eCigars, etc . Now, he wants us to do the SEO of his website. Im not sure, if the general practise is fine for him, because of the nicotine laws by the fda, yahoo and google will not do it. Let me know, how I should proceed.
Image & Video Optimization | | qubesys0