Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
We'd like to highlight three best practices
that address some of the most common problems found when crawling and indexing video content.
These best practices include ensuring your video URLs are crawlable, stating what countries your
videos may be played in, and that if your videos are removed, you clearly indicate this state to
search engines.
Best Practice 1: Verify your video URLs are crawlable: check your robots.txt
Sometimes publishers unknowingly include video URLs in their Sitemap that are
robots.txt disallowed. Please make sure your
robots.txt file isn't blocking any of the URLs specified in your Sitemap. This includes URLs for
the:
Playpage
Content and player
Thumbnail
Best Practice 2: Tell us what countries the video may be played in
Is your video only available in some locales? The optional attribute "restriction" has recently
been added (see our documentation about
video best practices), which you can use to
tell us whether the video can only be played in certain territories. Using this tag, you have the
option of either including a list of all countries where it can be played, or just telling us the
countries where it can't be played. If your videos can be played everywhere, then you don't need
to include this.
Best Practice 3: Indicate clearly when videos are removed—protect the user experience
Sometimes publishers take videos down but don't signal to search engines that they've done so.
This can result in the search engine's index not accurately reflecting content of the web. Then
when users click on a search result, they're taken to a page either indicating that the video
doesn't exist, or to a different video. Users find this experience dissatisfying. Although we have
mechanisms to detect when search results are no longer available, we strongly encourage following
community standards.
To signal that a video has been removed:
Return a 404 (Not found) HTTP response code, you can still return a helpful page to be
displayed to your users. Check out these
guidelines for creating useful 404 pages.
Indicate expiration dates for each video listed in a Video Sitemap (use the
<video:expiration_date> element) or mRSS feed (<dcterms:valid>
tag) submitted to Google.
For more information on Google Videos please visit our
Help Center, and to post questions and search
answers check out our
Help Forum.
Posted by Nelson Lee, Product Manager, Video Search
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eEnsure video URLs in your Sitemap are accessible and not blocked by your robots.txt file, including URLs for the playpage, content, player, and thumbnail.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eSpecify the countries where your videos can or cannot be played using the "restriction" attribute in your video sitemap to improve geographic targeting.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWhen removing videos, signal it clearly to search engines by returning a 404 HTTP response code and indicating expiration dates in your Video Sitemap or mRSS feed to maintain a positive user experience.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUtilize the \u003ccode\u003e<video:expiration_date>\u003c/code\u003e element in your Video Sitemap or the \u003ccode\u003e<dcterms:valid>\u003c/code\u003e tag in your mRSS feed when a video is removed or expires to ensure search engines are informed.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Video publishers should ensure video URLs are crawlable by checking their robots.txt file to avoid blocking playpage, content/player, and thumbnail URLs. They should specify countries where videos can be played using the \"restriction\" attribute. Finally, when removing videos, they should return a 404 error and indicate expiration dates in the Video Sitemap or mRSS feed to ensure accurate search results. These steps improve the user experience.\n"],null,["# Google Videos best practices\n\nSaturday, June 12, 2010\n\n\nWe'd like to highlight three [best practices](/search/docs/appearance/video)\nthat address some of the most common problems found when crawling and indexing video content.\nThese best practices include ensuring your video URLs are crawlable, stating what countries your\nvideos may be played in, and that if your videos are removed, you clearly indicate this state to\nsearch engines.\n\nBest Practice 1: Verify your video URLs are crawlable: check your robots.txt\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nSometimes publishers unknowingly include video URLs in their Sitemap that are\n[robots.txt](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/intro) disallowed. Please make sure your\nrobots.txt file isn't blocking any of the URLs specified in your Sitemap. This includes URLs for\nthe:\n\n- Playpage\n- Content and player\n- Thumbnail\n\nBest Practice 2: Tell us what countries the video may be played in\n------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nIs your video only available in some locales? The optional attribute \"restriction\" has recently\nbeen added (see our documentation about\n[video best practices](/search/docs/appearance/video)), which you can use to\ntell us whether the video can only be played in certain territories. Using this tag, you have the\noption of either including a list of all countries where it can be played, or just telling us the\ncountries where it can't be played. If your videos can be played everywhere, then you don't need\nto include this.\n\nBest Practice 3: Indicate clearly when videos are removed---protect the user experience\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nSometimes publishers take videos down but don't signal to search engines that they've done so.\nThis can result in the search engine's index not accurately reflecting content of the web. Then\nwhen users click on a search result, they're taken to a page either indicating that the video\ndoesn't exist, or to a different video. Users find this experience dissatisfying. Although we have\nmechanisms to detect when search results are no longer available, we strongly encourage following\ncommunity standards.\n\nTo signal that a video has been removed:\n\n1. **Return a `404 (Not found)` HTTP response code** , you can still return a helpful page to be displayed to your users. Check out these [guidelines for creating useful `404` pages](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/http-network-errors#soft-404-errors).\n2. **Indicate expiration dates** for each video listed in a Video Sitemap (use the `\u003cvideo:expiration_date\u003e` element) or mRSS feed (`\u003cdcterms:valid\u003e` tag) submitted to Google.\n\n\nFor more information on Google Videos please visit our\n[Help Center](/search/docs/appearance/video), and to post questions and search\nanswers check out our\n[Help Forum](https://support.google.com/webmasters/community/thread?tid=5216d9b9a700866a).\n\nPosted by Nelson Lee, Product Manager, Video Search"]]
