Video XML Sitemap
-
I've been recently been information by our dev team that we are not allowed legally to make our raw video files available in a video XML sitemap...This is one of the required tags. Has anyone run into a similar situation and has figured out a way around it?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Margarita
-
This is exactly what I needed! Thank you!!!!
-
Thank you so much, Phil. That's correct, the files are already in .mp4 format. Your answer below is perfect. I provided examples of big publishers who have no problem sharing their video locations. We will see how it goes! Just another battle as an in-house SEO. Thanks again!
-Margarita
-
I don't think Margarita means the "unrendered" files, but rather the video files used within the embedded player - which will be .mp4 or .flv or .mov etc. References to these files are required as part of a video sitemap as a video:content_locelement. </video:content_loc>
-
Hi Margarita,
So - firstly, I can't quite understand the logic behind your Dev teams concerns here - as anyone knowledgable enough to find your video sitemap and pull the file URL from there will also be knowledgeable enough to look through your source code and rip the video file through the embedded player. If somebody really wants to download your content, they will - and a video sitemap listing the URLs of the mp4/mov files isn't going to be advertisment for people to do this.
If, in another attempt to prevent piracy, the dev teams are delivering the video content dynamically via JS - you're going to face another issue as the videos may not get indexed.
However, all that said... there is a way round this which may pacify your dev teams and still get the rich snippet results you're after - and that is including a video:player_locelement in the sitemap, rather than a video:content_locelement. video:player_locshould point to a specific embedded player for a specific video -e.g. an .swf flash file or a dynamic HTML5 player e.g. http://player.vimeo.com/video/36862925.</video:player_loc></video:content_loc></video:player_loc>
This will prevent users from finding the original video files outside the context of the embedded player, but i should add that it's not an effective block against piracy.
I hope that's useful, let me know if you have any more questions.
Cheers,
Phil.
-
" raw video files" as in pre- rendered?
- Illegal? No
- Impractical? Yes
Sounds like your dev team is lazy. Tell them to convert to videos to .mp4 and go from there.
-
nope, those raw files exist. They don't want to share them with the public. Legally is the only answer I got...I think it has to do in part with them being afraid of people trying to download the videos.
-
What do they mean legally? Maybe they mean technically can't generate them, or they are over the 50mrg limit or something like that according to Google's rules?
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
-
Unsolved How much time does it take for Google to read the Sitemap?
Hi there, I could use your help with something. Last week, I submitted my sitemap in the search console to improve my website's visibility on Google. Unfortunately, I got an error message saying that Google is not reading my sitemap. I'm not sure what went wrong. Could you take a look at my site (OceanXD.org) and let me know if there's anything I can do to fix the issue? I would appreciate your help. Thank you so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OceanXD1 -
Dynamic XML Sitemap Generator
Has anyone used a Dynamic XML Sitemap Generator tool? Looking for recommendations!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Matchnode0 -
Ruby on rails sitemap.xml structure
Is their a recommended way/best practice to implement sitemap.xml files on a site built with ruby on rails?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianvest0 -
Sitemaps during a migration - which is the best way of dealing with them?
Many SEOs I know simply upload the new sitemap once the new site is launched - some keep the old site's URLs on the new sitemap (for a while) to facilitate the migration - others upload both the old and the new website together, to support the migration. Which is the best way to proceed? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Best tips for getting a video page to rank?
We have a video for our company, located here: http://www.imageworkscreative.com/imageworks-creative-video It's an overview of our company and the services we offer. We'd like to get this page ranking, but we haven't had much luck so far. Our Youtube account does better, but I'm looking for some things we can do on or offsite to get this page to rank. Any tips would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Desktop & Mobile Sitemaps Covering The Same Ground - Any Benefit To Having Both?
If my URL structure is the same for the desktop and mobile experience, is there any benefit to creating a mobile sitemap, considering that the sitemap for our desktop site covers the same URLs?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edmundsseo0 -
Images Sitemap GWT - not indexed?
So we went ahead and created an image sitemap of 2387 images, one for each product - I was hoping it would give us better exposure in image results. No joy, over 7 days and they only showing as "sent" but not "indexed". Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Has important is it to set "priority" and "frequency" in sitemaps?
Has anyone ever done any testing on setting "priority' and "frequency" in their sitemaps? What was the result? Does specifying priority or frequency help quite a bit?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline2