Build Video Sitemap with XML Sitemaps Generator

Making video sitemaps for search engines such as Google is similar to the process for creating standard XML sitemaps. The main difference is that the sitemapper crawler needs to collect more information.

To get started creating video sitemaps using A1 Sitemap Generator, just select and use the appropriate video sitemap preset before starting the website scan. This will configure all the settings necessary for creating video sitemaps of most websites.



Note: When selecting the video sitemap preset, you can afterwards choose to combine it with e.g. the WordPress preset. Combining the two will give you the best results for WordPress video sitemaps.

After the website crawl has finished, you can create the Google video XML sitemap by choosing the correct sitemap file kind to build:

If the video sitemap preset is not sufficient, you can configure settings yourself:

• First make sure the configuration includes relevant video file extensions and MIME types in output filters. The list of video formats Google accepts include: mpg, mpeg, mp4, mov, mv, asf, avi, ra, ram, rm, flv and more as they are added.
• You can help A1 Sitemap Generator to associate videos to the correct pages by excluding unwanted pages in the website crawl results. You do this by configuring output filters. This helps in cases where multiple seemingly equally relevant page URLs show the same video.
• If you have videos hosted externally (Vimeo, YouTube or similar), you should ensure that you have enabled option: Scan website | Data collection | Verify external URLs exist

While .swt flash movie files are not officially supported if trusting the documentation provided by Google for video sitemaps, you can still include such files as videos. To do that, add the .swt file extension to output filters. (The presets automatically do this as well.)

If your Flash video player embed links video related files inside itself (and not in the surrounding page HTML code), you will get best results if you configure our sitemap creator to crawl and search inside Flash files for video file references. (Not part of the configuration in the presets available.)

Remember: The crawler engine in our sitemapper defaults to obey robots.txt files. This means that if you block crawlers from accessing folders containing your images and videos, these will not be included. For more information, see our help page explaining this and related topics.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
  <url>
    <loc>http://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-generator/videos/sitemap-builder-sitemaps-tool/</loc>
    <video:video>
      <video:player allow_embed="yes">http://www.youtube.com/v/xZ-LrxSA3Yo?fs=1</video:player>
      <video:thumbnail_loc>http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/xZ-LrxSA3Yo/default.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
      <video:title>A1 Sitemap Generator - Videos [ sitemap builder sitemaps tool ]</video:title>
      <video:description>Video: A1 Sitemap Generator - build sitemaps quick demonstration</video:description>
      <video:category>sitemaps</video:category>
      <video:tag>a1</video:tag>
      <video:tag>sitemap</video:tag>
      <video:tag>generator</video:tag>
      <video:tag>google</video:tag>
      <video:tag>xml</video:tag>
      <video:tag>html</video:tag>
      <video:tag>sitemaps</video:tag>
    </video:video>
    <video:video>
    ...
    </video:video>
  </url>
  <url>
  ...
  </url>
</urlset>

The video thumbnail image is selected using a generic algorithm in the video sitemap generator. However, you can help A1 Sitemap Generator picking the correct video thumbnail picture by:

• Have at least part similarity between page, video and thumbnail image path and file names.
• Have thumbnail pictures include the word "thumb" or "thumbnail".
• Use Facebook Open Graph Protocol tags and attributes:
  • <meta property="og:image" content="http://example.com/example.png" />.
  • <meta property="og:video" content="http://example.com/example.mp4" />.
• Use Facebook Share tags and attributes:
  • <link rel="image_src" content="http://example.com/example.png" />.
  • <link rel="video_src" content="http://example.com/example.mov" />.
• Use Video Schema tags and attributes:
  • <meta itemprop="thumbnailUrl" content="http://example.com/example.png" />.
  • <meta itemprop="embedUrl" content="http://example.com/external.php" />.

The default order for how video titles and descriptions are selected is:

• From video movie related tags and tag attributes.
• From video thumbnail related tags and tag attributes.
• From video page related tags, i.e. title and meta tags.

Above also includes e.g. FlashVars and similar.

Hosting videos on external video content servers is a popular method to lessen server and website load. As a general guideline, this works fine when creating video sitemaps using our sitemap generator tool. However, many video hosting sites require added programming to work correctly. If you encounter one that is not working with video sitemaps, please contact support.

We aim to have the best possible support of all major external content and video hosting networks. However, do remember that some video hosting networks may have or enforce limitations that are out of our control.

We recommend that you host videos yourself if possible as this helps search engines associate the videos with your website in search results.

Supported video hosting and video players:

• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Easywebvideo
• Flowplayer
• Vooplayer
• Blip.tv
• Wistia (additional configuration required)
  • Disable domain restrictions in Wistia settings.
  • Use embedded iframe method for showing videos.
  • Set Scan website | Crawler engine | Max simultaneous connections to one.
  • Optional: Remove .bin in Scan website | Output filters | file extensions.
• More...