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Quick Indexing with the Video Sitemap Trick

quick indexing

Indexing can be a pain in the ass.  Until I found this trick, I was fumbling around impatiently, trying to use pinging services and social bookmark blasts in order to get something indexed.

This trick is:

  • Reliable (at the time of this writing): If it doesn’t index your site, then your site won’t index period.  Its probably a penalized domain.
  • Fast: 5 min – 2 hours
  • Safe: Index-forcing with tools like pingers is an SEO tool.  Google doesn’t like SEO’s.  Don’t do stuff that only an SEO would do.

Step 1) Embed a YouTube Video on the Page you want to Index

Browse YouTube and find any video that’s in your niche.  Find the embed code and copy it (Ctrl-C).  In terms of getting your page indexed, you don’t need to find an in-niche video.

But I find that it’s always good practice to always keep the theme for a page consistent at all times, so take the extra 2.3 seconds and find a pertinent video.

embed

 

Step 2) Paste the Embed Code into your Page’s HTML Editor and Save

publish

 

Step 3) Install Google XML Sitemap for Videos

You want the version by “Amit Agarwal”.

install sitemap

 

Step 4) Generate Site Map and Ping Google

Step a) Tools > Video Sitemap

tools

Step b) Generate Video Sitemap

generate

Step c) Tell Google to Crawl It

ping

 

Step 5) Watch Cat Videos (Wait)

This usually takes about 1-2 hours to get your page indexed, but I see it go through sometimes as fast as 5 minutes.

Bonus: Does this work for indexing pages that aren’t on your site?

Yes!  If you’re trying to index your social fortress, press release URLs, or even citations, the video sitemap trick still works.

The sitemap-video.xml file that is created by the plugin is a text file.  Copy one of the entries that it created for one of your posts and create a new entry. An entry starts with <url> and ends with </url>.  Between the <loc> and </loc> tags, you’ll edit the URL there and input the path of the URL you’d like to index.

sitemap example

Why does it work?  No idea, but it does.

 

Matt-Author-Img

Article by

Matt Diggity

Matt is the founder of Diggity Marketing, LeadSpring, The Search Initiative, The Affiliate Lab, and the Chiang Mai SEO Conference. He actually does SEO too.

24 thoughts on “Quick Indexing with the Video Sitemap Trick”

  1. Thanks for the tip. I installed the plugin but it only created one page out of the 6 I submitted on the xml file. I submitted it and the one page was indeed was indexed. I did find this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/youtube-video-sitemap-generator which does the same thing. It updated the xml file with all 6 pages. The plugin doesn’t have the “ping Google” option but just inserting the newly created xml file at the end of this URL: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap= does the same thing. The plugin you referenced hasn’t been updated in 3 years, which may be the reason it isn’t working correctly.

  2. well….$#$%…my wordpress didn’t find the video plugin ..and the sitemap wasn’t generated by the other plug ins…is that plugin no longer available ?

    1. It definitely doesn’t have the response time (30 min) like back in the good ol’ days. Nevertheless, I still find that it works, especially on stubborn social properties.

      1. Hey Matt, you mentioned that this method works, “especially on stubborn social properties “.
        -> does this mean this works for non-Wordpress pages. If so, then what do we use to generate an xml site map for video?

        1. Generate the file from your money site’s WP account. Then edit the file to add in your SF sites. Re-ping.

  3. Step 5

    When you save the new file? save as .xml and add it?

    Yes! If you’re trying to index your social fortress, press release URLs, or even citations, the video sitemap trick still works.

    The sitemap-video.xml file that is created by the plugin is a text file. Copy one of the entries that it created for one of your posts and create a new entry. An entry starts with and ends with . Between the and tags, you’ll edit the URL there and input the path of the URL you’d like to index.

    editing the sitemap

    Save your new file name and ping. This trick works even for offsite URLs.

    1. The plugin creates your file for you. Edit the file in your file manager and save it with the same name that it already has.

  4. Matt:

    Thank you. I was overthinking it way to fast. Create sitemap then edit then hit ping, don’t hit ping before you edit it for the location.

  5. Does this work for Serp Shaker Sites? It only seems to find one video in the .xml site map file. Not sure if it is hitting all 50 other videos posted on the 50 pages I have the same video on?

  6. Great article Matt. I don’t know if this is a good way to index citations/press releases but i create a google doc including all links and than i embed it to the Hompage of my moneysite. After a couple days they are all indexed and than i remove the embeded doc file from the hompage.

  7. Hey Matt,

    Great article. Always enjoy your valuable articles.

    Quick question: Lets say I have 50 URLs from my citations to get indexed. How would the end code look like. The last step of the article needs little bit clarification.

    Do I need to write code like etc.?

    1. Copy and paste the existing entries. They start and end with the lines of code I highlighted in blue.

  8. Hey Matt, I think I saw you posting on FB that you added an indexing method for backlinks from citations etc. Can you link me the article please? I cannot find it.

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