Optimize My Website - Video Search Engine Optimization

Video SEO

File Optimization

Metadata

Video SEO Both first and second generation video search engines consider metadata. First generation video search engines only only use meta information to judge the video. As such, it is imperative to provide well-placed, rich and relevant metadata that can be easily located by search engines.

NOTE: metadata is often lost during conversion. Not only should you create metadata, but you should also apply it each and every time your content goes onto a new service or is converted to a new format.

metadata cleaning. The media content creation and publication tools used to create video files often dump large amounts of irrelevant metadata into the files that are created. The video files need to be cleaned of this search engine distracting information.

Title and description

Titles and descriptions are the most commonly applied meta tabs in videos. If a video is hosted on a structured hosting or sharing site such as YouTube, insert this information in the provided specified title and description fields. If hosting on your own website, the title and description will usually be extracted based on proximity. In order to best represent the content on generic sites, it is best to have just one video per page with a simple textual title and description placed near the video itself. In the case of links to the video or other tags, it is advised to use anchor text as well.

Filename

If you are linking to a specific file that is hosted on a web server, ensure the filename is a sensible and descriptive one, ideally with hyphens or some other form of separating character in between words. For example, use "seattle-dentist-video.wmv" rather than "videofile.wmv" or "dentistvideo.wmv".

Sitemaps

Most video search engines allow the provision of a sitemap, starting-point URL or RSS feed. This invitation should absolutely be taken advantage of and used to provide the engine with a simple list of URLs that point to individual pages that host video. If we have followed the advice above, each page will contain just one video and, if the sitemap is being provided within an RSS feed, you can then also provide metadata in the RSS feed itself.

RSS and Media RSS

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an-XML based standard for publishing time-oriented feeds of information. Media RSS (MRSS) is an extension to standard RSS that allows any content publisher to widely distribute multimedia content descriptions and links across the Web. In addition to providing standard media metadata, MRSS enhances RSS 2.0 enclosures to handle media types such as video shorts and television clips. From the point of view of SEO, MRSS and RSS are used as a language in which to describe your video to the video search engines. Starting with a sample piece of RSS at one of the specific sites, use RSS to provide pointers to and descriptions of your video content, ensuring to fill all possible fields with relevant and accurate metadata.

Format

Deciding on a format for a video content can be a critical decision to make with regard to how the content is going to be used. However, it makes little obvious difference to Video SEO. If you're using a video sharing or hosting site, acceptable upload formats are often listed and the content is usually transcoded to one or more formats and resolution ranges for the final displayed format.

One thing to bear in mind with format choice, however, is that some video search engines allow users to limit results to one format or another. In this case, if you have multiple copies of your content on the site, you will maximize the chances of your video being returned, even if a user chooses to filter results. On the other hand, blinkx research of this feature has demonstrated that very few users - considerably less than 1% - ever use such filtering technology.

Naturally, if you're hosting your own video, you will have greater choice and control over the process. In this case, you may choose to adopt high-quality, compressed formats such as mpeg 4 or an easily embeddable, lower-quality format like Flash. One thing to keep in mind also is that as discussed earlier, there are two content management models: 1) Monetized video that is hosted on a particular site and, in order for the content's owner to earn revenue, requires viewers to view the video from that site and 2) Promotional video that is of an advertising or marketing nature and is therefore readily welcome to be placed onto other sites and services. In both cases, we want to acquire as many views as possible, but in the first instance, they want to ensure it does not lead to the content being pirated. Technical solutions to these issues exist, but Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other such technologies are outside the remit of this particular article. Instead, it is suggested that all content, regardless of its revenue model, be appropriately watermarked with a logo and, if possible, a source URL. This graphic, much like the small channel icon that many cable TV channels use today, tells viewers where to access the original content and ensures that, in the unfortunate event that your content is stolen, it still retains some of your brand identity. Moreover, it is very rare for such pirates or the hosting services they use to remove watermarking, so it is a sensible move overall.

Written by Administrator
Thursday, 02 August 2007
Video SEO File Optimization Metadata Both first and second generation video search engines consider metadata. First generation video search engines only only use meta information to judge the video. As such, it is imperative to provide well-placed, rich and relevant metadata that can be easily located by search engines. NOTE: metadata is often lost during conversion. Not only should you create metadata, but you should also apply it each and every time your content goes onto a new service or is converted to a new format. metadata cleaning. The media content creation and publication tools used to create video files often dump large amounts of irrelevant metadata into the files that are created. The video files need to be cleaned of this search engine distracting information. Title and description Titles and descriptions are the most commonly applied meta tabs in videos. If a video is hosted on a structured hosting or sharing site such as YouTube, insert this information in the provided specified title and description fields. If hosting on your own website, the title and description will usually be extracted based on proximity. In order to best represent the content on generic sites, it is best to have just one video per page with a simple textual title and description placed near the video itself. In the case of links to the video or other tags, it is advised to use anchor text as well. Filename If you are linking to a specific file that is hosted on a web server, ensure the filename is a sensible and descriptive one, ideally with hyphens or some other form of separating character in between words. For example, use "seattle-dentist-video.wmv" rather than "videofile.wmv" or "dentistvideo.wmv". Tags Tags are growing as a facet of search and navigation, both for video and the Internet as a whole. If you use a video sharing or hosting system such as YouTube, you will generally be given the opportunity to provide tags (and are strongly encouraged to do so). Unfortunately, many video sharing sites (YouTube in particular) suffer from prevalent tag abuse problems. Like regular site SEO, we do not play this game. Sitemaps Most video search engines allow the provision of a sitemap, starting-point URL or RSS feed. This invitation should absolutely be taken advantage of and used to provide the engine with a simple list of URLs that point to individual pages that host video. If we have followed the advice above, each page will contain just one video and, if the sitemap is being provided within an RSS feed, you can then also provide metadata in the RSS feed itself. RSS and Media RSS Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an-XML based standard for publishing time-oriented feeds of information. Media RSS (MRSS) is an extension to standard RSS that allows any content publisher to widely distribute multimedia content descriptions and links across the Web. In addition to providing standard media metadata, MRSS enhances RSS 2.0 enclosures to handle media types such as video shorts and television clips. From the point of view of SEO, MRSS and RSS are used as a language in which to describe your video to the video search engines. Starting with a sample piece of RSS at one of the specific sites, use RSS to provide pointers to and descriptions of your video content, ensuring to fill all possible fields with relevant and accurate metadata. Format Deciding on a format for a video content can be a critical decision to make with regard to how the content is going to be used. However, it makes little obvious difference to Video SEO. If you're using a video sharing or hosting site, acceptable upload formats are often listed and the content is usually transcoded to one or more formats and resolution ranges for the final displayed format. One thing to bear in mind with format choice, however, is that some video search engines allow users to limit results to one format or another. In this case, if you have multiple copies of your content on the site, you will maximize the chances of your video being returned, even if a user chooses to filter results. On the other hand, blinkx research of this feature has demonstrated that very few users - considerably less than 1% - ever use such filtering technology. Naturally, if you're hosting your own video, you will have greater choice and control over the process. In this case, you may choose to adopt high-quality, compressed formats such as mpeg 4 or an easily embeddable, lower-quality format like Flash. One thing to keep in mind also is that as discussed earlier, there are two content management models: 1) Monetized video that is hosted on a particular site and, in order for the content's owner to earn revenue, requires viewers to view the video from that site and 2) Promotional video that is of an advertising or marketing nature and is therefore readily welcome to be placed onto other sites and services. In both cases, we want to acquire as many views as possible, but in the first instance, they want to ensure it does not lead to the content being pirated. Technical solutions to these issues exist, but Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other such technologies are outside the remit of this particular article. Instead, it is suggested that all content, regardless of its revenue model, be appropriately watermarked with a logo and, if possible, a source URL. This graphic, much like the small channel icon that many cable TV channels use today, tells viewers where to access the original content and ensures that, in the unfortunate event that your content is stolen, it still retains some of your brand identity. Moreover, it is very rare for such pirates or the hosting services they use to remove watermarking, so it is a sensible move overall.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 02 August 2007 )