Google recently expanded the video indexing report in Search Console, providing more specific reasons why a video might not appear prominently in search results.
The search giant hopes to help better optimize video content for visibility and discoverability across its platforms.
More specific feedback for webmasters
Previously, if there was a problem with video content, Search Console would show the vague error message “Google was unable to locate the prominent video on the page”.
Google breaks down the overall message into three specific reasons:
- Video outside the viewport
- video too small
- video too big
The change offers clear, actionable advice.
For example, reposition the video so that it is within the renderable area of the page and visible when it loads.
Or you may need to resize the video to meet Google’s specific criteria.
Potential Impact of Changes
Changes to the video indexing report in Search Console may affect sites that receive traffic to pages with video content.
Google explains:
“By providing more accurate feedback on why a video may not be indexed, Google enables site owners to make necessary changes that could improve the visibility of their video content in Google Search. This could potentially lead to an increase in traffic to their sites if the recommended changes are implemented and lead to better indexing and visibility of the videos.”
With video content playing an increasingly important role in SERPs and appearing in video carousels and video-rich snippets, making sure Google is indexing it correctly is crucial.
Best practices for video indexing
While updates to Google’s video indexing report provide more specific reasons for indexing issues, they don’t provide a comprehensive list of best practices.
However, from the details provided and Google’s general guidelines, we can derive the following best practices:
- Position videos in the viewport.
- Make sure the video is an appropriate size.
- Use video sitemaps and structured data.
- Make video content files accessible to Googlebot.
- Provide clear and accurate metadata.
- Prioritize video quality and user interaction.
These practices can help improve the visibility of videos on Google Search, thereby increasing user engagement and website traffic.
Gradual implementation of changes
You won’t immediately notice these changes in your video indexing report.
According to Google, it can take up to three months for the historical data to be cleared before any new error reasons appear.
“Because the Search Console video indexing report shows 3 months of historical data, the list of reasons in the video indexing report may still show the message ‘Google was unable to locate the prominent video on the page’, but this will not affect you pages. “
In total
While the new Search Console report offers more specific clues as to why a video might not be indexed, it’s up to you to take advantage of this information.
By understanding the issues affecting video indexing and implementing the necessary changes, you can improve your video content’s visibility and drive traffic.
Featured image created by the author using Midjourney.
source: Google
