The Whys and Hows of Video Search Optimization - How Will They Find You?
(Page 2 of 4 )
People looking for video to watch online go about finding it the same way they go about finding anything else on the Internet: they use search engines. That’s where many of them start anyway. Google and Yahoo attract video searchers with their blended searches, which display different forms of content in the same list of search results. But they’re not the only ones turned to by video searchers.
There are also specialized video search engines. These search engines and blended search on the majors work the same way, in that both types of engines send indexing bots out to crawl the web, find videos, and bring their information back. When a searcher clicks on a link, they are taken to the site that hosts the video.
But search engines may just be a starting point for many online video viewers. There are also social networking sites, many of which focus on video. YouTube is the archetypical example, of course; there’s also Revver. Searchles also offers some serious video sharing opportunities, with users able to create their own “channels.” Many social sites that offer blogging for their users also make it easy to embed videos within blog entries; I’ll talk more about that later.
The difference between these social networking sites and the search engines is that the networking sites do not crawl for videos outside of their own sites. Users search for videos, yes, but someone searching for a video on Revver won’t find it using YouTube’s search engine – unless another user uploaded the Revver video to YouTube! In other words, as with any social networking site, video sharing sites rely on their users for content.
This distinction has been blurring a little bit. Searchles lets users post videos on their site that have also been posted elsewhere. Google Video lets users embed their videos on other sites; for instance, when I wanted to embed an amateur video I’d co-written into a Zude page, I was able to do so easily. I know that Google Video isn’t the only video sharing site that permits this. And some video search engines not only crawl the web looking for video; they permit users to push video to them.
I’m mentioning all this because it is important to understand the differences in how users find video online. If you don’t understand how the different video search engines/sharing sites work, you will find it difficult to aim your SEO campaign appropriately. Video SEO is a challenge, but it’s becoming more and more necessary as video’s profile continues to rise online.
Next: Best Video SEO Practices >>
More Search Optimization Articles
More By Terri Wells
