This blog is about one of the video indexing reports from Google, Google could not determine the prominent video on the page, and how to fix it.
The Google Search Console Team recently sent me the email shown below to let me know that my post’s video was causing a problem.
According to the official source, it indicated that this might be caused by rendering issues in Googlebot which we might not be able to fix but advised to make the video reasonably prominent on the page.
As was previously stated, we might not be able to fix it, but we can try to increase the visibility of the video to make the page more search-engine friendly and recognized by visitors. Some of the possible solutions are listed below:
- Increase the size of the video (iframe tag);
- Add a heading like H2 to a video (to make the video stand out);
- Add space before and after the video (to make sure the video is not hiding in the text);
- Move the video to the top, or the first part of the post (if it is possible and appropriate).
As mentioned below, you can check how Google sees the page by following the path and checking the screenshot. If you can simply move the video somewhere inside the initial screen position, the problem may be fixed quickly.
Try using the URL Inspection report’s live test on your page and examine the screenshot to see the page as Google sees it. (Inspect the page URL, then click Test live URL > View tested page > Screenshot). If the video is outside of the initial screen position, you’ll need to try another test method.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9495631?hl=en#indexing_status
In my case, I could not move the video to the top of the page as it was not meant to be used in the introduction so I expanded the size of the video by following the 16:9 aspect ratio (the most common aspect ratio) and also placed a heading just before the video to make it stand out.
Media size information:
Before: width=560, height=315 After: width=640, height=360
How to increase the size of the video
- Step 1Go to the post in the dashboard
Click to edit the relevant post in the WordPress dashboard where you are having issues.
- Step 2Edit the size of the video in the iframe tag
Find the iframe tag where you defined the video’s size. You can adjust the width and height to suit your needs. In my case, I’ve increased it to 640 (width) and 360 (height). In addition, I’ve added a heading just before the video to make it more visible.
[Click to View] - Step 3Publish the post
After resizing the video, preview it to ensure that you are satisfied with the changes, and then republish it.
- Step 4Validate the fix in Google Search Console
Go to your Google Search Console and navigate to the Video pages and click the video with which you have an issue. To complete the fix, click VALIDATE FIX as seen in the figure below.
[Click to View] After then, Google will begin the validation process. You will get an email after the procedure is finished (it took a day in my case to be validated). You will get an email from the Search Console Team that looks like the one below if the issue is fixed.
[Email from Search Console Team – Click to View] Under the Video pages in your Search Console, the most recent state of the video is displayed.
[Click to View]
Final Thought
It’s possible that this situation is not urgent, therefore you can simply ignore it. However, to boost your SEO, it is worth attempting to fix. Just increasing the video size and adding a heading to the video solved my problem, but if that doesn’t help your situation, try testing out some of the other methods that have been mentioned.
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