Google Introduces Video Sitemaps
You know those cool thumbnails YouTube videos get in Google search results? Earlier this year, Google expanded that feature to results from other major video sites. Now even videos hosted on personal sites can get that extra visibility in the SERPs.
Google has long offered a sitemap protocol to help webmasters get their nonvideo content indexed. Now they’re introducing video sitemaps, complete with the ability to have your videos thumbnailed and played from within Google search results.
Thumbnailing videos from across the Web was the main draw of Yahoo Video; now Google can do it too. Google’s nonvideo sitemap protocol is now industry-standard; expect their new video sitemap protocol to become the same.
The technology still relies on human-entered text metadata, though. We all know Google is working on ways to automatically extract metadata from the videos themselves. Wonder when they’ll incorporate those.
In the meantime, I need a WordPress plugin to automate video sitemap updates for my personal blogs, preferably integrated with the FLV Embed plugin. If anyone can make that plugin, I’ll happily plug it here.
7 opinions for Google Introduces Video Sitemaps
Microsoft and Viacom Gang Up on Google
Dec 21, 2007 at 9:44 am
[…] create and innovate, losers litigate and negotiate. While the engineers at Google introduce new technologies for online video, the suits at Microsoft and Viacom just throw money at it. A $500 million […]
Marc
Dec 22, 2007 at 11:43 am
A video sitemap plugin… what a great idea.
I have just created the worlds first Google Video Sitemap Software:
http://www.videositemappro.com
Enjoy!
-Marc Liron
Google Video Sitemap Generator
Dec 22, 2007 at 12:32 pm
[…] days after Google introduces video sitemaps, independent developers Robert Redwood and Marc Liron release a free offline generator called Video Sitemap Pro. Very […]
Vertical Video Can’t Compete on Content
Jan 13, 2008 at 8:45 am
[…] Now that anyone can post videos about anything anywhere — and find any audience anywhere in a search-powered video world — vertical video sharing sites cannot compete on content […]
Yahoo Matching Google’s Two-Pronged Video Strategy
Feb 3, 2008 at 12:21 pm
[…] With the release of Sitemaps for Video, Google solidified its two-pronged approach to video: storage via YouTube, and search via Sitemaps. Knowledge gleaned from storage powers innovation in search: remember that YouTube videos got thumbnails in the SERPS before Sitemapped videos did. […]
YouTube Reveals Plans: Analytics, Editing, Recommendations
Feb 14, 2008 at 3:16 pm
[…] There’s been some real clamor for advanced YouTube video analytics in the face of cheating on YouTube. Wonder if YouTube video analytics will filter to Google Analytics the same way YouTube SERP thumbnails filtered to Google Video Sitemaps. […]
Charles Iliya Krempeaux
Feb 15, 2008 at 4:16 am
“In the meantime, I need a WordPress plugin to automate video sitemap updates for my personal blogs…” “If anyone can make that plugin, I’ll happily plug it here.”
I’m going to hold you to that when I create another VideoPress plugin to do that :-)
http://getvideopress.com/
(VideoPress is part of Show in a Box — http://showinabox.tv/ )
– Charles Iliya Krempeaux
http://changelog.ca
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