Everybody knows sitemaps. But did you know Video-Sitemaps?
Looked like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url>
<video:video>
<video:title><![CDATA[Your Shitty Title]]></video:title>
<video:description><![CDATA[Your Shitty Description]]></video:description>
<video:publication_date>Your Recent Data</video:publication_date>
</video:video>
<loc>Your Juicy Spam URL</loc>
</url>
</urlset>
Until years ago you could use them to index large amounts of URLs in Google.
The second you submitted the sitemap, the URLs were indexed.
Most indexers used that method back then. That’s why all indexers suddenly stopped working when google closed that ‘loophole’ and became expensive.
But that’s not the lesson here…
I’m not here to teach you ‘methods’.
I’m here to lovingly push your mind in the right direction so you come up with your own methods.
Lets start:
I saw others using Video-Sitemaps. There were even blog posts about it at one point.
What did all those people do?
They added videos to their posts and linked those in the sitemap. Added titles and descriptions to the sitemap.
Maybe you were one of them.
Because they thought that it was needed. I mean… it was called Video-Sitemap.
But that was never needed. The videos never had to actually exist, the titles and descriptions could be random crap.
The 2 lessons here:
- You are using things like they are intended to be used. Call it method, call it hack, call it exploit, call it cheat. You will never find anything interesting (in SEO and in life in general) if you use things in the way they are intended to be used.
- You are starting from the complicated and complex end. Instead start from the other end. Start with the most simple solution. For example, use only the <loc> and see if that works. If not, add more complexity to it. Iterate until it works.
That way you do only what’s actually needed, not what you think could be needed. Hint: It’s the same with the Google algorithm…
Same as with lesson 1, those doesn’t only apply to SEO but also to your coding projects (especially those) and life in general.
I ‘talked’ about specific knowledge, a term Naval Ravikant is using a lot in his writings and podcasts, a bit in some Tweets lately. It’s a hard to describe term. This is kind of an example. I can’t really teach you how to do that, it can barely be copied. It’s a mindset, it’s a way to think, a way to do things with which you come up with solutions to problems in a unique way and others are willed to pay money for.
Until the next one.