You may have seen video snippets in search result when you search for a keyword is popular search engines such as Google or Bing. Google is focusing more on multimedia now. As you know they added image extensions into Adwords and also embedded big YouTube videos for music tracks. Such improvements help webmasters to get more clicks because of attractive video snippet.
Few months ago Google even added a feature when you type exact music video name, it will return big video search result and you can watch it from search results directly, without being redirected to YouTube.
Little Party Never Killed Nobody
I’m working on some site and was browsing Google for this keyword “Love Travel Dating” and spotted that number 3 in search result a video snippet. It does not mean that you can watch it right from search results but it looks more attractive and I’m sure it receives more clicks than number two for example.
So how you can make video snippet for your site or page:
- Host your video on some video hosting.
- Use correct markup. Google recommends to use schema.org
Now Google recognizes the Facebook Share and Yahoo SearchMonkey RDF markups. You can use any of them to help Google better understand and crawl your video. Here is the official Google properties:
Facebook Share
| Property | Description |
| image_src | (Required.) A URL pointing to a preview thumbnail, which must be a GIF, PNG, or JPG image. The preview thumbnail must be hosted on the same domain as the video. |
| video_src | (Required.) A URL to the video to play when the user clicks the “play” button. |
| medium | Indicates the type of content being shared. Valid values are audio, image, video, news, blog and mult. |
| video_width | The video’s width in pixels, including any “chrome” provided by the third-party player. |
| video_height | The video’s height in pixels, including any “chrome” provided by the third-party player. |
| video_type | The video’s MIME-type. Currently, the only acceptable value is application/x-shockwave-flash. |
| description | A short (up to 200 characters) description of the video. |
| title | The title of a video. Up to 60 characters. |
Example
<meta name=”title” content=”Baroo? – cute puppies” />
<meta name=”description” content=”The cutest canine head tilts on the Internet!” />
<link rel=”image_src” href=”http://example.com/thumbnail_preview.jpg” />
<link rel=”video_src” href=”http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345″/>
<meta name=”video_height” content=”296″ />
<meta name=”video_width” content=”512″ />
<meta name=”video_type” content=”application/x-shockwave-flash” />
Yahoo Search Monkey
| Property | Description |
| media:video | (Required.) A URL to the video to play when the user clicks the “play” button. |
| xmlns:media | (Required.) Must consist of the following URL: “http://search.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/media/”. |
| media:thumbnail | (Required.) A URL pointing to a preview thumbnail, which must be a GIF, PNG, or JPG image. The preview thumbnail must be hosted on the same domain as the video. |
| xmlns:dc | A valid URL to the Dublin Core namespace. The only acceptable value is “http://purl.org/dc/terms/”. Required only if you are using Dublin Core metadata such as dc:description |
| dc:license | Indicates the license for this content. You may use dc:license or cc:license. |
| dc:description | A short (up to 200 characters) description of the video. |
| media:title | Specifies the title of a video. Up to 60 characters. |
| media:width | The video’s width in pixels, including any “chrome” provided by the third-party player. |
| media:height | The video’s height in pixels, including any “chrome” provided by the third-party player. |
| media:type | The video’s MIME-type. Currently, the only acceptable value is application/x-shockwave-flash. |
| media:region | An international region where the video may be played. The default is * (play in all regions). |
| media:duration | The duration of the video, in seconds. |
Example
<object width=”512″ height=”296″ rel=”media:video” resource=”http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345″ xmlns:media=”http://search.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/media/” xmlns:dc=”http://purl.org/dc/terms/”> <param name=”movie” value=”http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345″ /> <embed src=”http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”512″ height=”296″> <a rel=”media:thumbnail” href=”http://example.com/thumbnail_preview.jpg” /> <a rel=”dc:license” href=”http://example.com/terms_of_service.html” /> <span property=”dc:description” content=”Cute Overload defines Baroo? as: Dogspeak for ‘Whut the…?’Frequently accompanied by the Canine Tilt and/or wrinkled brow for enhanced effect.” /> <span property=”media:title” content=”Baroo? – cute puppies” /> <span property=”media:width” content=”512″ /> <span property=”media:height” content=”296″ /> <span property=”media:type” content=”application/x-shockwave-flash” /> <span property=”media:region” content=”us” /> <span property=”media:region” content=”uk” /> <span property=”media:duration” content=”63″ /> </object>
If you did everything properly, you can check it in Rich Snippet Preview Tool.
If you know a better way to set up video snippet for your page, please let me know.