Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Thanks,
Aji
There is one recent step I took that may have influenced the shift. It's just one case, so I can't call the idea well-tested - but it's certainly a good thing to do no matter what.
Media files (just like .doc and .pdf files) are notorious for having really bad meta data and this site was no exception. So about 4 weeks before the ranking change, I went through all the video files with an application to check and optimize the embedded meta-data for each file.
I wish I could give you a big secret, but in truth I just took care of the basics.
Thats a good idea to edit the meta-data of the video but I wonder how easily a user can do that. I have added enough description with the sitemap submitted to the webmaster tools.
Also I am planning to place these videos on pages with enough related in it. I hope this will help too.
Thanks Tedster, looking forward for some more secrets from you :)
Happy weekend!
Aji
My page is spot #1-#3 anyways for the major keywords, but there are three adwords adds (one from me;) and sometimes a google-base/froogle-block above. So what I am primiarily targetting, is this screenshot-eyecatcher.
I'd love to see tedster's initial attempt on this issue under
[webmasterworld.com...]
get warmed up again.
As a start, let me tell one of my findings: Under
[google.com...]
you may find a more detailed description of the valid XML-tags for video sitemaps. I submitted my fist version just defining url, title and description, and the sitemap got accepted, but nothing happened. Two days later I defined the <tag>-tags (the equivalent to meta-data-keywords, I assume) additionally, and now my video is found in the google video-search for the keywords defined there.
But I still have tons of questions, because the final goal is clearly to get listed in the regular SERPS (universal search) with the screenshot of my videos. So what can I do about this?
> Thats a good idea to edit the meta-data of the video but I wonder how easily a user can do that
Yes. I assume, google is counter-checking this with the regular semantic parts of the ranking algorithm. But what I completely did not understand, was the intention of the <video:rating> and <video:view_count> tags: Shall I rate my video myself? Shall I tell google how often my visitors viewed it? I cannot believe this and would really like to hear something from google officials on this.
Another block of questions has to do with what is really indexable in flash-files? A rose is a rose is a rose, but this is different for flash. For instance, someone said, it would help to have some text on the first and last frames of the video file. OK: but how can you be sure, this text isn't "re-imaged" so to speak in the process of further manipulating the video file. I suspect, to add text with windows movie maker and then generate the flv-file with mmjpeg is compeltely useleess?
Is adobes software the only stuff that guarantees such text is kept indexable? You can open a pdf-document with a normal editor and at least see some fragements of your text embedded, but the syntax of swf-files is so cryptic, that makes no sense. And I assume an flv-file is a pure video stream with absolutely no text embedded? Or am I wrong here?
And what about javascript? Google-video-search has indexed my video and it may be found, but it cannot be played on the video-search-page (which I don't find that bad actually), only on my page. I guess this has to do with the swf-player I use. OMG I'm such a noob on flash (as most SEOs), but I am pretty sure it is a must to learn at least the basics here.
I wish I had your patience;)
Will you find your video under google-video-search using the relevant keywords already?
As I said: I defined the <tag> - tags in right this video-xml using relevant keyphrases. One day later, the file could be found on that video-search. Take a look at the link I gave above on the precise syntax.
But it's still Long Way to Tipperary, I'm afraid.
