Google has updated the video indexing report within Google Search Console to add impression data and a way to filter the report by your available sitemaps.

As a reminder, the video indexing report went fully live in August 2022 after Google started to slowly roll out the video index report within Google Search Console earlier in 2022.

Google added two new features to the report; impression data and a sitemap filter. Here is a GIF of these two features:

You can now overlay the impressions your indexed videos saw directly in this report. Google said, “the impressions are aggregated by page which means that if the same page appears multiple times in a single search result page (or a single Discover session), then we consider each appearance as an impression.”

Here is what it looks like:

Google added, “The Search performance report groups video search appearances by property, not by URL, which means that if multiple pages show in a search results, we’ll count only one impression. As a result, the Search performance report can show lower impression counts than the Video page indexing report.”

The sitemap filter is a nice addition also, so you can see what videos you submitted via your sitemaps compared to what Google really indexed. Google said, “To help you focus on the video pages that matter most to you, you can now filter the Video indexing report to show only video pages that are present in a selected sitemap. The filter applies to all the report features: the chart, chart totals, issue list, and exports.”

Here is a screenshot of that:

You also see a section in the sitemaps location for discovered videos:

Hi @JohnMu @rustybrick
“Discovered Video” Tab in Google search console is it something new? pic.twitter.com/hu0rcEGqKW

— Jaydip Pancholi (@jaydip_ahir_333) February 2, 2023

Google Search Console Video indexing report has been also added to the Indexing>Sitemaps section.

now we can easily navigate & monitor page indexing & video indexing from the sitemap.

CC:- @glenngabe @rustybrick #SEO #GoogleSearch pic.twitter.com/NT18IE8O2f

— Vijay Chauhan 📈 (@VijayChauhanSEO) February 2, 2023

Again, if Google sees videos on your site, Google will display the new “Video indexing report” on the left navigation bar in the coverage section of Google Search Console. The report shows the status of video indexing on your site. It helps you answer the following questions:

• In how many pages has Google identified a video?
• Which videos were indexed successfully?
• What are the issues preventing videos from being indexed?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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John Mueller of Google blasted SEO or marketing agencies that sell both link-building services and disavow link services. He said on Twitter, “These agencies (both those creating, and those disavowing) are just making stuff up, and cashing in from those who don’t know better.”

John added that its “all made up and irrelevant.”

Also, when asked if they should disavow links, John replied yesterday on Twitter, “Don’t waste your time on it; do things that build up your site instead.”

Here is the chain of tweets, so you see the context that John is replying to.

Ryan Jones does his rant:

I’m still shocked at how many seos regularly disavow links. Why? Unless you spammed them or have a manual action you’re probably doing more harm than good.

— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones) January 31, 2023

Here is the chain that follows:

There are no clear instructions from google’s side that what kind of links we should disavow even Google created confusion on this by saying no need to disavow blogspot, shaddy links, adult site links.

— Saurabh Rawat (Tech SEO) (@SEOGuruJaipur) January 31, 2023

I’ve personally never seen that type of negative seo actually work without some sort of hacking or the site itself having some sort of issue the links exploit.

— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones) January 31, 2023

That’s all made up & irrelevant. These agencies (both those creating, and those disavowing) are just making stuff up, and cashing in from those who don’t know better.

— John Mueller is watching out for Google+ 🐀 (@JohnMu) January 31, 2023

Pretty strong words from John, don’t you think?

Here is the second part:

Not unless it was placed with ‘intent to manipulate’ by someone. Its important to know you have those though as they could be impacting relevancy or the site owners opinion on how many valid links you actually have etc

— Paul Madden (@PaulDavidMadden) January 31, 2023

Don’t waste your time on it; do things that build up your site instead.

— John Mueller is watching out for Google+ 🐀 (@JohnMu) January 31, 2023

One note:

Thanks for posting on this issue. I think you should add my conclusion tweet as well that all this is claimed by an agency, not by me.
I am not a native English speaker, not sure how people are taking this. I just tried to put some serious points here to help our SEO community.

— Saurabh Rawat (Tech SEO) (@SEOGuruJaipur) February 1, 2023

Just yesterday we covered the topic of disavowing spammy porn links and also added how Google has downplays disavowing links for a while. John said in that in that SEO office hours help video yesterday, “That said, this will not position your site as it was before, but it can help our algorithms to recognize that they can trust your site again, giving you a chance to work up from there.” I don’t think he meant that fully based on what he said yesterday and previously?

But this is pretty strong language for not bothering with the disavow file.

Forum discussion at Twitter.