Way back in 2007, when there were only 10 million videos on the web, Google provided a way to add sitemaps specificially for video. Amazingly they are called video sitemaps. Go figure!
They are the standard type of XML documents we have come across before.
The paramaters supported include;
- video page location
- video file content with format file extension (i.e. FLV, mpeg)
- player location (the swf player – not sure why they need this, but it is REQUIRED)
- thumbnail (static snapshot thumnail offering flavour of video content)
- title
- description
- TAGS <video:tag>
- Rating (out of 5)
- <video:view_count>
- <video:publication_date> (YYYY-mm-dd)
- <video:category>
- <video:family_friendly>
- <video:duration>
- <video:expiration_date> (optional and not advised by me unless specifically seasonal or time sensitive, fo robvious reasons)
Example (Google) Video Site Map
It’s discussed more in Google Webmaster tools help, and we will come back ot talk more about this too.
If you want a TOOL to create these Video SiteMaps for you, please LMK as we may well make one for our own use anyway.
