This page is a Google Video Sitemap WordPress Plugin Review – Click below for the following:
Google Video Sitemap Official Site
I was one of the early adopters of the Google Video Sitemap Plugin for WordPress. Since I have been using video as a means of search engine optimization and traffic building for a number of my clients over the last year, it was fitting for me to get a copy of this plugin. I started off using a manual Google Video Sitemap tool, but it was pretty cumbersome, all the manual work, editing, then uploading all became too much.
Who Is The Google Video Sitemap Plugin For?
The Google Video Sitemap is for those who utilize their own video on their WordPress site (there is also other versions of the software for Joomla and static web sites) and want to use it to get video thumbnails within the search results; like the example below.
What Does A Google Video Sitemap Do?
As seen in the example above it allows you to get video thumbnails within the search engine results to help yo stand out on the first page of Google. The other main benefit is instead of having the link go to Youtube or another video site, the link will show your domain, which is a huge advantage especially if you want to send them straight to a landing page or something like that – thus less clicks to find your site, offer or product you’re trying to promote.
What’s Inside The Google Video Sitemap Plugin?
- Permalinks – on your xml video sitemap will be the permalnks you have set up within your WordPress site (eg. Settings -> Permalinks)
- External Pages – here you can add in any external page that does not lie within your WordPress install (eg. a static page you have uploaded within your site – yoursite.com/special-offer.htm)
- Auto pinging – the plugin also pings popular pinging services all automatically
- URL for Google Webmaters Sitemap submission
Other Benefits Of The Google Video Sitemap Plugin
- Accepts multiple file format (works with mp4, wmf, flv, avi)
- Can be formatted and submitted as either Google Video Sitemap or mRSS (developed by yahoo) formats
- Also works with Easy Video Player
- Can use custom fields within post
- Set pinging frequency
- Family Safe options
I’ve heard from the developer of this plugin that there are some fantastic new developments just about to be released, so you’d probably want to get a copy now in case they increase the price.
Get your copy of the Google Video Sitemap Plugin by Clicking on the green button above.
36 Comments:
Hi Cal, I am currently using Amazon S3 to store my video files, how does this plugin work with such a situation and how does it give me credit or use my URL instead of amazon S3′s URL?
Aloha Carl, enjoyed your video clip and post. Gosh I always wondered how they got a video on the search engines and now I know. Glad I came by. Thanks for sharing! Lanikee.com
PS..come by and visit me and leave me a sweet comment. The benefits are sharing is caring! Mahalo!
Aloha Lani,
No probs, well glad you stopped by – btw there is a new edition coming out soon (will keep you posted) but it will do multiple sites (not just WordPress ones…) so if you manage many sites like I do, then it can be a bit of a pain…so that is why the generator will change all that.
Owen,
The plugin sits on your site and when it creates the xml file it puts the file name into the formatting, so when you submit your video sitemap to google webmasters then it credits your video to you since it looks at the sitemap and not necessarily the video.
As long as your video ends with one of the common video formats you should be ok (eg. mp4, mov, wmv) etc. Or of you are using Easy Video Player it can pick that up too.
I use a plugin called Flash Video Player to do embed in my site.
Carl
Thanks for your response, you are awesome!
Does this recognize swf files using custom players?
Some of my blogs have swf videos created with V2F
Storm,
sorry does not work wih swf. But you can use something like flash video player (free wordpress plugin – which uses the JW player) , or FlowPlayer or countless other players out there.
Hello,I’ve downloaded a lot of FLV data format video via youtube,and i’d like to convert those video clip to Mp4,avi,and some other file format.However I have no idea which software program I ought to purchase.
Robbie,
There are plenty of video conversion programs out there, but I am not condoning you downloading videos from YT, since they can be copywrited videos. So you do so at your own risk.
Hey Carl,
Just wondering if you could explain how to get multiple listings in Google. I use video sitemaps for my wordpress site, but once my video is indexed it pushes my original blog page out of the ranks. It looks as though Google only wants me to have one result on the first page for the same page of my site. Any help is greatly appreciated.
- Pat
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Pat,
Sure thing, yes that is true what google does, but here are some ideas for you.
1) Don’t just do 1 post about the subject with 1 video, do several, with slight variations of the title, keywords, description etc
2) Don’t just post it on your blog but distribute your videos to multiple video sites – a site can only attain at most 2 subsequent links from the one domain name, but by posting to alternate sites, like video hosting platforms like youtube, vimeo, dailymotion, viddler etc you will be able to snag a few more on the results pages “piggy backing” from their pulling power. Make sure you’re also backlinking and social bookmarking the videos on the channels too, so that they rise in authority. Some video site will always do better than others, but its the pulling power of the major ones that will allow you to totally own the first 5 pages in the search engines (particularly google).
Here are some video distribution channels you can use (some are free and others are paid)
1) This is probably my number 1 Video Distribution source
2) TubeMogul.com is another (but don’t send advertising videos through this one, as they will close you down quick smart)
3) Heyspread is another
4) pixelpipe.com is another
With the use of video I’ve manage to get some of my clients as much as 37 out of 50 results (so we have over 50% of the listings in the first 5 pages in google) using this method. The ranks do fluctuate, ranging from 7-9 on the first page.
Some of the videos also got picked up by high profile sites like sportsillustrated and several news sites that sent the views through the roof.
Hope that helps
Carl
Good post. I especially like that this will show your website URL in the search results instead of YouTube. Your answer to Pat is what brought me here from Google – great answer.
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Hey Ken, with some testing, whenever there is a thumbnail in the search results you will often get a CTR of about 18%+, and without anywhere from 1%-5%+ So its best to get your thumbnails into the search results (side not, don’t go for just 1 result, go for many on the home page, and the first few pages).
Great article, very concise, no fluff! I am new to blogging, and every little bit of info and tips/reviews is very helpful.
Thanks,
Kevin Lindgren
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I read somewhere that if you host videos on your own site and they get clicked on a lot that your hosting company will slow you down to a crawl. Is this true. The obvious advantages to hosting your own video is a link straight to your site as opposed to you tube.
Edgar,
Yes, true cause most people use a shared hosting service, which means that you will also slow down the server not only for you but everyone else on the server too. So you are best to put the heavy lifting of videos to something like amazon s3 or amazon cloudfront. That way it will take the hit of the bandwidth and it is burstable bandwidth, meaning, if you get a huge amount of people one month and hardly any the next you only pay for what you use. I will be coming out with some more videos explaining how I use this service.
Thanks i realy start now to check out your video and will iplant the pligin when i have some video on my side
We’re going to host our videos on Brightcove or Ooyala. Does your plugin support embedded videos hosted on those services?
Best,
Andy
Andy,
no only via amazon S3 or your own server (which I would not recommend using your own server especially if you are using a shared host).
Carl,
Well, I just have to say that I’m glad I found this post for sure – but there does seem to be a little confusion over the embeded video and the sitemap.
From what I have read, it is not that you have the video hosted on your site, or at Amazon S3 – it is the fact that you have video on your site which is the countable factor?
This being the case, and you saying that you need to have it hosted by S3 or on your own server, how does that work with the video that you have used for this page – being a youtube video, hosted on youtube an embeded in the site page?
I typed in to Google “video sitemap plugin” and your video was in the results before the others, so now Im getting a touch confused about the whole “sitemap” scenario.
Look forward to your response.
Darren
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Darren,
there is a way of getting it on the page but not visable to the user, but to the search engines (view the source of the page or view the and you will see the embed code).
This is actually a really good idea because now Carl is getting views to his youtube video (which helps rankings in youtube) AND he has a video result showing up in the search engines for this page AND he’s not using any of his own bandwidth. That’s the trifecta of video perfection. I’ve been doing the same thing on some of my sites. Nice work Carl!
PS – you might want to delete this comment if that strategy is supposed to be secret. haha!
- Pat
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Pat,
that is only a small part to a bigger picture, but yes you are on the right path. And yes I will release some of the secrets I do in an up and coming “advanced” course.
Hi Carl. I have recently bought the plugin through your website and it has worked for some of my blog postings, so thanks. One thing I can’t get my head round though is how you have a direct link to your youtube video in your blog posting, yet google is still picking your website up in the video results. I tried adding a youtube video to a blog posting but when I generate my video sitemap it doesn’t show up when I check my videositemap.xml? Please help.
Nice, sitemaps are one of the best ways to have a completely indexed site.
Matthew,
Its a little trick I am doing, all will be revealed when I release my course really soon
I’ll keep you posted.
Carl
Hi Carl
I clicked on the green button and ordered the plugin through Mark Dulisse …Is this correct? I then could not download and the download button on his website Not sure if the order got hijacked?…please advise. I have not gotten the plugin I paid for.
TOM
Tom,
yes this is correct, Mark typically uses a WP plugin for his membership sites, and this is where he has that plugin stored, within the member section of that site. If you are experiencing some trouble, please contact his support team (see initial email for support email). I’m sure they are happy to assis you and walk you through.
how do you hide your s3 hosted videos. is there a technique. can you elaborate how this is done? i see that you hid your paid hosting video and replaced it with youtube what are the exact steps involved thanks
thank you
i was searching about that
Can I exploit multiple SEO plugins for my blog. I have all-in-one seo and google xml sitemap. But looking to download more for the extra help. Will this have a unfavourable effect on my rankings or will it help tremendously? Thanks very a lot
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Carl,
Does this support videos hosted by Viddler? We have several sites we would love to use this plugin for but haven’t found any that work for Viddler videos.
Thanks in advance!
Chad
Chad, as long as you can get a full URL eg. yourwebsite.com/video.mp4 this will then pick up in G the Google Video Sitemap.
It all depends on what plugins you are using? WP-Cache is a great one to have, as it will help with load times, thus, keeping the google bots happy with fast load times.
Hello
does it support multisite wp + bp ?\
Also can i get the sitemap generated with video inserted with shortcode on post ?
regards
I have not tested with WP MU. You will have to test with the short code, as some short codes vary.