Assignment 3 - Web Media - SEO Problems and Solutions

In the first two assignments, I introduced the most beneficial web directories and search sites and how to submit your websites to them. I also provide some guidelines to follow when designing and developing a web site. While the assignments do provide information that will certainly benefit your seach optimization process, they do not explain the steps that must be taken when implementing rich media into your websites. Let's face it, people don't want to stare at a page with just plain text, anymore. People like media. I mean, look at the popularity of television, and then imagine television with the added functionality of the web. So, because the future of web media production is a given, this assignment will discuss the current state of web media types, and their compatibility with search engine crawlers and/or spiders. Technology is always slightly faster than the people trying to control it. The goal of this assignment is to help clear up any issues or at least provide information about the current problems with web media and dynamic data types, in hopes that you will then be able to design and develop a web site with a different perspective and have a better understanding of SEO for web media content.

Rich Media Types

The integration of rich media into a web site is nothing new. Video and Audio have been used for years, even since the very beginning of the Internet's popularity. Unfortunately, the dynamic duo only seemed to annoy users. Slow dial up modems could not handle the large packets of video information being sent over the Internet, and the poor compression rates of audio files forced users to listen to annoying midi clips. It seemed that low quality video and audio clips were all over the place, with no real structure or way for users to choose which dancing baby to watch or which sitcom theme song to listen to. Now, things are much different. The use of audio and video within a web page is improving. The advent of broadband connections have resurrected rich media content, and television networks are quickly jumping on the Internet bandwagon. As each new website introduces their media content, the web will continue to grow larger every day. This is great news to seekers of web content, but the exponential growth of web content stored online introduces a question for creaters of web sites. How should rich media be best optimized for search engines so that people can find it on the Internet? In order to answer this question, we must first evaluate the current problems that search engines have with rich media types.

The Problem with Rich Media Types vs. Search Engines

In assignments 2, I stressed the importance of keywords within a web site, and how those keywords direct search engines indexing. Keywords provide the web site context for spiders or robots that are viewing them. The better the keywords within a web site are, the higher the web site's search engine ranking will be. So, the problem with rich media elements and SEO is that the sound waves or animated graphics, that make up the media types, do not contain the essential keywords that search engine spiders like to see. So what can we do to provide keywords for content without text? The answer is meta data.

The Solution for Rich Media Types vs. Search Engines

Meta data is textual data that is included with or embedded into rich media content. A file's metadata contains descriptive information that helps to contextualize the actual content contained within the file. For example, you can listen to an .mp3, but you might not know the exact length of the song, the songs title, what genre of music it belongs to, or even the software that was used to create it. Metadata makes organizing rich media much, such as video and audio, much easier and it also allows search engine spiders to index the otherwise textless mediums. A picture can say a thousand words, but not to search engine spiders. The spiders or robots need the web developers to create the words for them, at least until search engines can figure out a way to visually scan web graphics and sound waves. So how then do we create this magical metadata for video and audio, you may ask? It is actually quite easy.


Overview of Metadata Generating Programs

The first thing one must do when optimizing rich media content for the web is embed the appropriate metadata into your media files. If you have ever published a media file from a piece of software, such as Adobe Premiere or Protools, then it is likely that you have already been introduced to metadata injection. Popular video and audio applications make it easy to embed common metadata like framerate or duration into rich media. When dealing with video, for example, it is nice to be able to generate the duration metadata for use with timecodes. This common information is nice, but what if specific scenes in a video could be described in full detail? What if you could prepare your videos so that end users can better search exact areas of your content. Well you can!

The most current media applications also support the embedding of customized metadata information, such as titles, and descriptions that help contextualize the media. Whether common or customized, the metadata is conveniently saved as a string of keywords and assigned in name/value pairs. If you have read Assignment 2, which discusses the significance of keywords, you should have a good idea of how to create your own keywords for use with media content.


Metadata for Flash Video (.flv)

Why use Flash Video?

I have found myself growing more fond of Flash Video (.flv) as I invent new ways to utilize it's rich features. Another reason I am leaning more towards flash video than any other format is because of its ever increasing popularity, especially with search engine sites. Google, one of the most well known search engine service, uses the newest Flash platform to display their indexed videos. What does this mean? This means that Google has realized that Flash is the most efficient way to display video. Flash is even extensible enough to embed other popular video codecs without their native players. Flash offers the total package and provides the platform to take video interfaces to the next level. The Flash video format (.flv) allows developers to bring users closer to the video they are watching. Different points within a Flash video can "cue" actionscript, which in return can perform just about any function within the realm of the Flash Player.

Google is using Flash to present all web video, so if you use the .flv format then your a step ahead of others not using it. This is because a video format is always going to run more effectively in its target video player. A .mov file runs best in Apple's Quicktime Player and a .wmv will always run better in Window's Media Player. In fact, you can't even play a .mov in Window's Media Player or a .mov in Quicktime. When your .flv is loaded into Google's player it will probably run smoother than its competition. So, it all boils down to this. If you want to get the most out of your video by adding rich interactive features then Flash video is the way to go, plus your movies will work seamlessly with the current technologies being utilized by the top search engine companies, such as Google.

How To Embed Metadata into Flash Video

I recently purchased a program called Captionate and my life suddenly became easier. Captionate allows you to embed closed captions, subtitles, and cue points in your Flash video files. Captionate also provides an interface to embed both common and custom metadata into your (.flvs). Below is a short 4 minute long video where I explain how to use Captionate.