How Scripps makes video findable
Entry updated Feb. 12, 2008 at 4:59 p.m.
Video is hot for newspapers at the moment, and Scripps is certainly no exception. Several of our sites have been churning out video for some time now while others are just getting started.
But one problem that has plagued all sites, not just newspapers, when it comes to video is its ability to be found by search engines. And until Google and the other major players figure out how to index content within videos our options are limited.
Or are they? The key is to make use of the metadata -- and add it semantically to your markup -- that relates to each aspect of a video.
The worst thing you can do with video is to house it in a database outside of your primary site search. Most CMS don't have an option for video since it hasn't been part of the normal requirements list in years past for obvious reasons.
If your newspaper is considering the purchase or development of a new CMS video management should be an essential item.
Our solution at Scripps has been to develop a video player") in Adobe Flex that uses content managed in the Django-built Ellington.
But the kicker is how it breaks up videos for tremendous searchability with both the internal site search and engines such as Google and Yahoo!
When you add a video to Ellington for the Scripps player, a variety of metadata can be made available. Some of these are:
- Creation date and time
- Videographer or one-off videographer
- Video URL (path to video)
- Title
- Slug (for URL purposes)
- Caption
- Credits
- Video dimensions
- Related stories
- Thumbnail
- Size of video (in bytes)
- Category
That last item (category) is very useful. It allows for category specific video players. It also keeps the same workflow as with stories.
But back to searchability.
After a video is published, it is added to various iterations of the player. For instance, it can be in the playlist player (plays a specific category or categories of video) but is always available as an indiviual video just like a story. It always appears in the video index found by going to http://sitename.com/videos/.
And if there is a story that owns the video, it can be added as an "inline" and played directly from a player embedded within a story.
The real SEO comes with the video detail page however. That's where the juicy pieces of metadata are displayed along with the video, served in by SWFObject. Each video also has a unique URL that can be indexed.
Let's recap: Videos are indexed by the internal site search. Videos are searchable by Google. Users find videos. Users are happy.
Also, notice how YouTube organizes their video. Looks similar right? :)
If you work for a newspaper, how is your site organizing its video? Can users find it?
Two comments
Outstanding points all, Patrick.
I'd humbly add one more: Story-level video players.
Because the Google-bots do an excellent job of finding relevant text. And that drives users interested in the topic directly to the story. Whereupon they discover -sooprise!- a relevant video package.
@Tom
Yeah, we do that too. :)
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