This is the Original Post

After getting linked on digg and fark this became a hot topic. This is the original, first post.

Hidden Google Video Categories

Publishers have the option to select 38 different genres they‘d like to categorize their video in. Most of these categories are not linked anywhere on the google video website.

Tricks and Application

For example say you‘re looking for educational videos on alcohol or drinking, but you don‘t want any drunk party videos or comedy vids. Search for the keywords "alcohol genre:educational" instead of just alcohol. If you search more specific keywords like alcohol effects you‘ll miss videos titled "alcohol rehab center", "Lecture on Alcohol Consumption" and a myriad of related educational videos that just don‘t contain the keyword effects.

I thought the stock photography section was interesting too, because it‘s formatted a little differently.

What Google Lists

On It‘s main page it lists just a few of the 38 indicated above.

1. Comedy
2. Animation
3. Sports

Google Types

Google orders the videos by two queries. Types and Genres. The genres is what the publishers chooses; the ones listed above. Large video publishers like music corporations and news stations are categorized in the type section.

Differences Example

1. Genre: Sports
2. Type: Sports

Notice that in the sports category on the front page the keyword is "type:sports OR genre:sports" including both genre and type.

Type List

• Movie
• Sports
• TV Shows
• Google Pick
• Music Video

Free Today: More Button

Clicking the more button will give you a bunch of free today categories, not a list of genres. These are again listed under type because they are from large publishers. I wont bother listing them here. Go to the official freetoday page.

How were these found?

At first it was just a guessing game actually. I knew they existed because I had submitted videos and it seemed weird that google didnt have a way to search the categories. I had to guess most of the queries at first. Many are pretty straight forward. Home video is genre search home_video. But some were a little harder like Children & Family. Children_fam, family, children? I couldn‘t find what the category was. I had the bright idea of searching the in edit video details html source, and sure enough there were all the category names.

Children & Family

Digg this story

Digg me ... please? =‘(

Google Video By Ordered Country

Google video has top lists, movers and shakers, organized by country. Compare what your country is interested in vs another country. You can also use them to practice your foreign languages, but many times the videos are still just in english. I found out shamefully after troubling myself to find as many countries as possible that google has a simple drop down button for country selection. Oh well. They‘re here.

The Unofficial Google Video Sitemap

Google video is pretty huge. Despite google having a popular sitemaps page google video doesnt have a sitemap of its own.

1. Google Video top 100
2. Google Video Movers and Shakers
3. Google Video Blog
4. Google Video Free Today
5. Google Video Staff Picks
6. Google National Archives

Cool Video Searches

There‘s a lot of cool vids in google video and I can‘t wait until they give the option to search by rating. Maybe someone viewing this blog can guess that query string ahead of time too ;). Here‘s some cool ideas for searches.

For some reason all these videos have been rated many times, and they all rock.

For cool pool trick shots. Searching "pool trick shots" will also work.

See your old favorite games beaten in just minutes with these time attack videos. Emulators are used and the game is saved and loaded until it looks flawless. PC games are also time attacked.

Fifa world cup finals are around the corner. Search soccer too. There‘s all kinds of skill videos to see that rock.

Google Video Language Query String

Google has an option in their video publisher section about what language the video is in. It seems logical that google, currently in the process of a massive globalization, would have the option to see videos in native tongues. I tried searching for google video in other languages, but have mostly failed in the process. To find google videos in other languages lets look at how google in general sorts languages.

Google in other languages usually has a different URL tag. For example spanish has the .mx tag at the end: http://www./ . I tried http://video./ , but it doesnt exist. In google news, google uses a query string to sort by language.

For example. Google news in english is http://news.google.com/news?ned=us
Google news for spanish is http://news.google.com/news?ned=es
(ES stands for Espanol.)

I tried a myriad of query strings but it seems google video sorted by language doesn‘t exist.