Google published a case study that shows how using structured data and following best practices improved discoverability and brought more search traffic. The case study was about the use of Video structured data but the insights shared are applicable across a range of content types.
The new case study is about an Indonesian publisher called Vidio.
How CDNs Can Cause Indexing Problems
One of the interesting points in the case study is about an issue related to how CDNs can link to image and video files with expiring URLs. The new documentation specifically mentions that it’s important that the CDN uses stable URLs and links to another Google documentation page that goes into more detail.
Google explains that some CDNs use quickly expiring URLs for video and thumbnail files and encourages publishers and SEOs to use just one stable URL for each video. Something interesting to note is that not only does this help Google index the files it also helps Google collect user interest signals.
This is what the documentation advises:
“Some CDNs use quickly expiring URLs for video and thumbnail files. These URLs may prevent Google from successfully indexing your videos or fetching the video files. This also makes it harder for Google to understand users’ interest in your videos over time.
Use a single unique and stable URL for each video. This allows Google to discover and process the videos consistently, confirm they are still available and collect correct signals on the videos.”
Implementing The Correct Structured Data
Google highlighted the importance of using the correct structured data and validating it with Google’s structured data testing tool.
These are the results of the above work:
“Within a year of implementing VideoObject markup, Vidio saw improvements in impressions and clicks on their video pages. While the number of videos that Vidio published from Q1 2022 to Q1 2023 increased by ~30%, adding VideoObject markup made their videos eligible for display in various places on Google.
This led to an increase of ~3x video impressions and close to 2x video clicks on Google Search. Vidio also used the Search Console video indexing report and performance report, which helped them to identify and fix issues for their entire platform.”
Indexing + Structured Data = More Visibility
The keys to better search performance were ensuring that Google is able to crawl the URLs, which is something that can easily be overlooked in the rush to correlate a drop in rankings to a recent algorithm update. Never rule anything out during a site audit.
Another thing the case study recommends that is important is to assure that the proper structured data is being used. Using the appropriate structured data can help make a webpage qualify for improved search visibility through one of Google’s enhanced search features like featured snippets.
Read Google’s case study:
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Anton Vierietin