Google is encouraging TV show owners/providers to begin tagging their online videos with several new fields that can be used in both video sitemaps and mRSS feeds.

The new fields include specific data for identifying the show/series title, season and episode numbers, premiere date and more. Google’s blog post explains and shows the correct code in more detail.

Interestingly, that blog post also begins by saying the new fields should be used “if your website is the authoritative source for the video of a particular TV show.” But there’s nothing stopping other sites that post unofficial TV show episodes from also using the code.

Google has been under fire recently from critics who say that it doesn’t do enough to deter piracy in its search results. This was the subject of a recent US congressional hearing, and Google also recently took action to drop piracy-related terms as suggestions. The stories below have more:

• Could The US Demand That Google Boost Hollywood Sites To Fight Online Piracy?
• Google Removes Piracy-Related Terms From Instant Search

Today’s move also seems similar to what Google News did a few months ago when it offered new meta tags to help identify the original sources of online content.

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: TV | Google: YouTube & Video | Legal: Copyright

About The Author: Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. See more articles by Matt McGee

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