If you're a webmaster, you've probably noticed the recent trend of receiving strange emails from Google Search Console regarding video indexing issues on your website. Alternatively, you may have also noticed a new "check" under the "Video Pages" section on your search console index. Either way, it's important to take action to fix these indexing issues as soon as possible to avoid any penalties from Google.

What is Video Indexing?

Google webmaster tools got many updates, which included updates to the look of the search console. This gave it a more modern look and feel, with clear reports. In addition, there were several enhancements made, such as google news, discover core web vitals, and the latest addition – video pages in the search console. With this latest addition, you can now see how your videos are performing in terms of indexing. If they are not properly indexed, you can see which errors caused them to stop indexing.

Video pages , Why do they matter ?

If you're wondering why video pages are so important, it's because they're a great way to use videos on your website and improve your Google ranking.

Videos are much more relevant and engaging than text or blog posts, and people love watching demos of what they're reading about. So if you want to grab people's attention and keep them engaged, using videos on your website is the way to go.

For example, you're currently reading a blog post about videos. You also found a video on that specific topic and it's engaging the audience of your content. The latest Google Core update of search Console includes the dedicated Video pages Section under the index section which shows the Google intent for Videos.  A well-optimized Video on your webpage can engage more audience and help to index your mobile and desktop pages faster.

Different video meta data are combined by google

If you see multiple URLs for the same video on a page, this means that Google considers them to be duplicates. In this case, Google might use metadata from any of the duplicate sources--for example, the title from URL1 and the thumbnail from URL2.

To ensure that each video has a unique video and thumbnail URL:

- Make sure that the Video object URL matches the URL used in HTML tags (<embed>, <video>, or other appropriate tag), sitemaps, and mRSS files.

- Differentiate your videos by using different thumbnails for each one. This will help your audience easily identify the video they want to watch, and it will also make your channel more visually appealing..

Troubleshooting overview

• Video fetching

Google indexes videos from indexed pages. In order to index a video, Google must be able to find the video on the page as well as sufficient information about the video. If there are multiple videos on a single page, Google will only index one video per page.

Google tries to fetch video files as part of its video indexing process. However, if a file is blocked to Google (i.e. some services block Google from fetching a video) or if the file is in an unsupported format, it won't be fetched. Even if a video is not fetched, it can still be indexed.

• Fixing video page indexing

If you're getting emails from Google to fix your videos or seeing video pages indexing reports on your Google Search Console, don't worry, you're not alone. This is a brand new update from Google. To fix this error, go to your Google Search Console and under the video pages section, you'll see a list of all the errors. Click on each one and follow the instructions provided by Google.

Page indexing

• Google can find the page if it is linked from another page that Google knows about, or if it is listed in a sitemap.
• Google can access the page if it is not blocked by a robots.txt rule, noindex rule, or by requiring a login.
• The page follows all the guidelines if it does not violate any of Google's guidelines.
• The page isn't a duplicate if it is not grouped together with other pages on your site that are similar.

Fixing the unsupported video format error

The "unsupported video format error" occurs when the video content on your webpages is not officially supported by Google servers. If you see a message saying "Google could not determine the prominent video on the page," this means the Google video bot couldn't find the proper HTML tags with your video. You can fix this easily by putting an H2 tag on your video. We also have a dedicated video on this error, which is becoming more common.

The error indicates that the length of your videos is not appropriate for the web page. Check the length of your videos and make sure they are neither too small nor too large. If you see this error on your video pages, don't worry. This is an issue with Google's search crawler. When the crawler reaches your website, it will see the content and decide whether to index your videos. Just leave them for a few days.

The thumbnail URL was not provided

If you see this error, it means that you have not provided a thumbnail URL for your videos. Make sure to provide a thumbnail URL so that people can see a preview of your video before they watch it.

The companies who provide marketing web development services can also help you to improve your video indexing or page indexing.

To be noted

Currently, Search Console doesn't have comprehensive video statistics. For example, there's no report that shows the total number of unique indexed videos on a site. Instead, there's a count of indexed pages containing a video. Also, Search Console doesn't have a way to see all indexed pages associated with a given indexed video.