Google Video Sitemap Content Location

[norcalseo]

Hey guys:

I have a question about Google Video Sitemaps. If we provide the location of the raw video file in our sitemap (which is optional), is there any way in which:

-Google caches the location of the FLV in a way that allows users to access it?
-The video would ever be viewable, in full, without having to go to the landing page on the site? (I don't want the videos viewable directly on Google video search).

I have some nervous product managers and I need to assuage fears. They're afraid that by giving out the location of the raw file then all sorts of bad things will happen--people will download it, Google will start showing it to users, etc., and we depend on the traffic to the pages themselves for tracking and advertising purposes.

I think that hiding the location of the raw content behind a bunch of JavaScript players etc. is part of why our otherwise-much-smaller competition is beating the pants off of us right now, but what do I know? I'm a first timer with video sitemaps though so I don't want to tie my own noose if this is really going to cause a huge problem.

[beu]

Hey norcalseo,

"When a user finds your video through Google, they will be linked to your hosted environments for the full playback."

- google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80471

I think you're correct though depending on what you mean about how JavaScript is being used? Googlebot having to traverse JavaScript to reach your video content could be an issue...

If you haven't already, be sure to check out the links at google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=10079

Hope that helps, happy holidays and best of luck to you!

-Brian