My wistia videos are not being index by Google. Does anyone know what can be happening?
-
I have the wistia site map on my robots.txt file and I also manually submit the site map to google.
It shows that my videos were submitted successfully but they are not being indexed. Thanks
-
Hi,
The video being too far down the page might be an issue. I've seen this cause problems before, and in your case I think it could be a problem. More broadly though, I don't think you should have those videos on the category pages, because the video itself is just image slideshow and actually does more to hamper the using experience rather than help it. As rich snippets aren't common any more, I don't think you're going to get much value from having these videos on those pages.
Having the sitemap hosted at Wistia isn't a problem. You can point to a sitemap hosted on any site.
Other likely problems are duplicate content. You seem to have significant duplicate content issues as I'm seeing about 3 variations of that page indexed.
Hope that's useful,
Phil.
-
Hi Phil,
I've always appreciated reading your comments to others but I wanted to reach out to you with a question.
We are having a similar issue with our Wistia video's not being indexed (it's been several months). The funny thing is that our videos, which are hosted by Wistia, used to be indexed before we launched our responsive design site upgrade. The older version had the video near the top of the page, but it was under a "tab". The new version, the video is down a lot farther (to make room for our product options), but it is no longer in a tab. http://www.hairbowcenter.com/ribbon/grosgrain-ribbon/hbc-solid-grosgrain-ribbon/browse-by-width-hbc-grosgrain/3-grosgrain-ribbon-solid-hbc-75mm.html
We noticed that the video's themselves do show up when you view the page as google. If you look at the cached page, the video is there along with the closed captioning.
We have had several opinions as to what could cause the issue:
1) Video is too far down on the page. We are not quite sure how to fix this as it would further push down our products and this is primarily a e-commerce page
2) Video sitemap is hosted at Wistia: I"m not sure if this would matter as it seems to work for everyone else and it used to work for us. We have a roboxt.txt file pointing to Wistia.
If you have any thoughts on what the issue might be, I'd love to hear them.Thanks
-
You're most welcome!
-
Another suggestion...
Being a huge fan of Wistia, there directions do clearly say, one video per page. So this is what we do. We have a video on one page with ONLY the video transcript. We give google the url to this page only. For the videos where our shoppers view, like our product pages, etc, we use the thumbnail with popup, this way it keeps the consumer on the page were they can purchase.
Also dont be afraid to email the wistia support, they are fantastic. Good luck!
Cathy
-
Thank you very much! Your help was much appreciated!!
Let the "waiting period" begin
Thanks
Michelle
-
Videos using a lightbox will sometimes get indexed - it really depends on whether or not Google manage to execute the JS - and this really depends on the whole site architecture. It might be an issue for you, it might not.
My gut is that the main issue at this stage is just time, so I'd definitely give it a few more weeks before taking any further action.
From personal experience, I would be extremely surprised if the position of the video has anything to do with it - "the fold" is a much less concretely defined concept than it once was and your videos are perfectly prominent on the page.
-
Hello Phil,
Very helpful answer! Thank you.
We have some pages where we only have one video per page, just like you mentioned. For example: http://goo.gl/PX6X6E
We are trying different things in different pages to see if googlebot likes a specific scenario.
We saw some sites where the video was indexed and it was showing on google search and they were using the lightbox, that's why we decided to try that as well. We were wondering if the position of the video on the page had anything to do with the index success. Since a lot of our videos are being embed after the fold.
I guess, if googlebot likes the "one video per page" those pages with only one video should be indexed. We'll see! I'll wait a little longer.
Thank you!
Michelle
-
Hi Michelle,
So - firstly, a week is not enough time to determine whether there is a problem with indexation. Videos can take weeks and even months to get indexed, even with all the appropriate mark-up applied, and so I'd recommended at least holding fire for a few more weeks before being too concerned.
However... there are quite a few things on the page in question which could confuse Googlebot and therefore pose problems for you. Firstly, you've embedded the same video twice on the page - once in a lightbox behind a JavaScript Trigger, and then once just embedded into the page. It's hard to know whether Google will be able to execute that JavaScript successfully, but it's highly possible this double embed could confuse Googlebot (and confuse users!). Is there any particular reason why you've embedded the video twice? Secondly, you've also embedded a load of YouTube videos at the bottom of the page. YouTube videos get indexed on the pages they're embedded on instantly, but don't often rank with rich snippets in the blended organic results. This is also a fairly confusing signal to Googlebot, where the "one video per page" model still seems to be the most effective way of getting everything indexed correctly.
I hope that's useful!
Phil
-
hello Erica,
Thank you for your answer.
I already watched all the videos I could find on the subject including videos from Wistia, Distilled and MOZ blog and It seems like I did everything the way I am supposed to.
This is one of my product pages that have the wistia video embed.
I have the wistia site map on my robots.txt file and I also manually submit one to google webmaster tools.
It's been a week since I submitted my video site map, there are no errors, but only the URL's were indexed, none of the videos.
Our goal is to display the video thumbnail on the search results next to our product pages.
thank you!
Michelle
-
Hello Phil,
Thank you for your time. I watched all your videos on this subject and I can't find what is causing the issue.
This is one of my product pages that have the wistia video embed.
I have the wistia site map on my robots.txt file and I also manually submit one to google webmaster tools.
It's been a week since I submitted my video site map, there are no errors, but only the URL's were indexed, none of the videos.
Our goal is to display the video thumbnail on the search results next to our product pages.
thank you!
Michelle
-
Are you able to share the site in question?
I'll happily take a look into it for you.
-
Without looking at your exact maps, it's hard to say. I'd suggest reading through and watching Wistia's awesome documentation about Video SEO and seeing if anything pops out as not happening on your end.
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
-
Can i use base64 images (URI) for better SEO performance - faster site loading?
Hi, Do you think the use of image data URI is SEO friendly? I got 20 JPG icons on each site, but use too many HTTP requests. So can i use base64 (URI) images for my small icons? Thank you for answer!
Image & Video Optimization | | Termex0 -
Google Places - Bulk Upload Solution
Hi we have a client who currently has over 50 stores in the country (Australia). Some of these stores already have a Google Plus Local Pages and manage them individually. Most of them have reviews, and images. The corporate office wants to place all these stores under one bulk account to bring consistency with the brand and it's image. Now this presents a issue. From our research we have 3 options: 1. Un-verify the listings in each of the accounts and once this has been done, claim them individually in the account you want to manage them under. 2. Delete the listings from Maps and then recreate them under the bulk feed in account. This will allow you to manage them with the rest of your listings more efficiently, however if the stores have any reviews these may be lost. 3. Create new listings and leave the other ones and these should get merged, the issue here is the data could be incorrect and it could cause some duplication. Our goal is to transfer the listings to a single bulk account without losing the - reviews, and images.Or avoiding new problems such as duplicate listing or the listing gets somehow deleted for weeks during the process, causing massive frustration with all the stakeholders involved. I think our best bet is (1) to get the stores to individually unverify their account. However this may risk the lost of reviews and images. Plus it will be highly unlikely that the store owners will follow through or like doing this, and would be a painful long communication process which may take 2+ months. Are they any suggestions on how to best approach this situation? Thanks, Matt Carter
Image & Video Optimization | | Mattcarter080 -
Taking control over Google Places and Google+ Pages?
Hi we have a client who has about 40 different stores around the country. Most of the stores have their own Google+ Pages or Google Places. We want to take control of all 40 stores from a centralized location. So we can control their Google+ Pages/Google Places to improve them, and keep them uniformed with each other.How/Can can we do this? Does Google provide any way to do this? Thanks, Mark
Image & Video Optimization | | MBASydney0 -
Google Plus for clients
Hi folks, I am coming to the realization that most of my local business clients simply do not have the time, desire or knowledge to establish a Google Plus personal profile and business page. Therefore, I have been contemplating the best approach to establishing Google Plus business pages for multiple clients. It would appear that information attached to the personal profile for the primary Google Plus account is not revealed when a business page is viewed, and a single personal profile can establish multiple business pages, would it be safe to assume this may be the correct approach? For example: I have a personal profile and a page for my SEO business. Could I simply create additional business pages for my clients under my account - even though I am not business owner? Are there any adverse ramifications to this approach (e.g. ownership transfer, local SERP issues, etc.)? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | SCW0 -
Genuine Reciprocal Google Places Reviews, is that OK?
I have a client who works with other businesses, is it OK to have reciprocal reviews going on, they would be genuine reviews both both sides as they work for each other. Is that OK? Is it best for my client to use the Google Account that holds their Google Places page for doing the reviews? Or should they have a separate account for writing reviews, not associated with their business? I would appreciate your thoughts on this please? Many thanks Leo
Image & Video Optimization | | Rosewood0 -
Help - Google places,a service my competitor has used...
I was just doing a bit of detective work on a competitors website and noticed they had employed the services of an SEO company. Anyway, i went on this SEO companies website and discovered they offer a service called "Google places". Now I have an idea what google places is (my company is registered with it) but how are SEOs using Google places as a method for SEO? And how can I copy this service to do this for my own website?
Image & Video Optimization | | copywritingbuzz0 -
Google Places ranking not making sense
With regard to the proximity to the city centre if you google 'chartered accountants swansea' you will see that the 2nd google places listing 'drpaccountants' are located way out of the city centre and they have no photos, reviews etc Where as on my listing it has a 100% completed profile but am way down the results, when many of the top places results are very basic http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=chartered%2Baccountant%2Bswansea&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CGIQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harrisbassett.co.uk%2F&ei=sp-mTraQEoiz8QPBqMzVDw&usg=AFQjCNG1C-xsNxgM6vWj1geoxv_u4KbD0g What else needs to be done apart from getting reviews? I have added lots of local citations to the likes of Yelp, Qype, Hotfrog etc but none are showing under the listing on google places? Also is there a reason why the description field is not being populated in the google places account? As from some of the other top places listings it seems to be picking this up from their website? The other issue is under the dashboard it displays 0 impressions and 0 actions is this normal? What is my places listing missing or have I done everything I possibly can and just have to wait for Google to re-rank the places results? I
Image & Video Optimization | | idv0 -
Whats is going on with Google Places?
I know they recently started rolling out their update of their Places pages but a lot of people, including myself are having problems such as missing descriptions, hours, categories (not updated), etc. Anyone have any insight into when we might expect these issues to be corrected? As far as I can tell Google has not really addressed the problem whatsoever. Their forum is packed with people complaining but so far so they have remained quiet. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | PMC-3120870