Arnaud Mauvais of the video search engine, Truveo, recently spoke about online video at SES NYC (March 2008). Here are his insights into the topic of video search engines:

How searches are made. Regular searchers search and then continue to refine their search until they get the results they wish to see. Those searching for video also begin by searching, but then they transition into browsing behavior, looking at categories, tags and community input to decide what to watch.

How relevancy is determined. In regular searches, relevancy is based upon text. In video searches, relevancy is based upon the community. What do they think it’s about? How do they categorize it? How do they rate it? Does it get a lot of views? Is it shared?

Metadata. You may be allowed up to 50 fields of metadata to be associated with a  video. Use as many as are practical, keeping in mind that this text is what the video search engines currently use to tell what a video is about.

Where to host your videos. Embedded video leads to a better user experience, so host your own videos on your website. If you host it elsewhere, you save bandwidth, but you get what you get and can’t control it.

Submitting video. Use a media RSS feed to submit your videos to the major Search Engines. Truveo offers easy-to-understand directions on creating media RSS feeds here.

People make their decisions on whether to watch a video or not by:

• The appeal of the thumbnail.
• The duration of the video.
• The category the video is in.