Where do External Links appear on IMDB PRO pages for projects

I've gone several rounds with customer support, and I now think I've been dealing with a bot in that regard

Please respond to the following questions:
1) Where do the links for these trailers that appear on the THE EXTERNAL SITE PAGES of their respective project pages on imdb.com show up on the corresponding IMDB Pro pages?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29389922/externalsites/?ref_=tt_ql_dts_5
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21054112/externalsites/?ref_=tt_ql_dts_5

1a) Is there an "External Sites" area on IMDB Pro?

2) When did you change the design of the project pages to hide links to trailers in a less-than helpful "external sites" area? When people hear about a project, and check it out on IMDB, they want to see a trailer, and you've effectively buried trailers.

3) Why do you not have a trailers link on the top level of the project pages on both imdb.com and IMDB Pro?

4) I'm paying money each year for IMDB Pro, but I am not usually a producer so I typically wouldn't be using the IMDB Scorecard functionality. (When was that introduced, by the way?) I am driving traffic to your site by entering credits for projects into IMDB or IMDB Pro. It feels like IMDB is burying the external trailer links on imdb.com, and maybe I am misunderstanding something or not knowing where to look for these external trailer links on IMDB Pro. Is there some concern about people watching content outside of IMDB when they view an external link trailer? Are you trying to get more people to pay for IMDB Pro (because I already am)?

5) I recall that trailer links used to appear under the “Videos” tab on IMDB PRO, but no longer. Am I remembering correctly?

Thanks for your time in answering my questions.
Kind regards,

Ms.Tessie

Responses

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Bethanny

Employee

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5.6K Messages

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58.9K Points

2 years ago

Hi @MsTessie -

You can find external links under the 'News' tab. To add video content directly (the one that would show under videos) you need to add it via scorecard, follow our help guides for more.

Cheers!

MsTessie

3 Messages

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90 Points

Hi Bethanny,

Thanks so much for your reply! I do have some questions/feedback, if you work for IMDB.

1) Why put video links in the News tab?

That doesn't make sense at least to me. It should go under the Video tab because a trailer is essentially a video, it's not news. Can I make a suggestion to move trailer video links to the Video tab?

2) The formatting/design of this area seems off. Why is the link text right justified? It should be left justified to ensure that it is seen!

If a user has too small a window open, they might miss the external link text entirely. See screenshots below of 1) when text is not visible and 2) when text is visible.

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2 below

shows the external links text on the far right because it is right justified. In my opinion, the text should be left justified. Please fix.

3) Finally, I do not understand why as an actor with an IMDB Pro account, I can link to my demo reels hosted on another platform, such as Vimeo, on my acting page and get an image placeholder for the video, but I can't do that in entering credits on projects unless I am eligible to use IMDB Title Scorecard, which I wouldn't be as an actor. And yet, by entering projects into IMDB, I am drawing traffic to your website.

Fundamentally, I'm not understanding why a trailer, which would be a fundamental marketing tool of any project, would be relegated to an external links area on IMDB or a "news tab" on IMDB Pro. Can you explain?

Thanks again for your help!

2 years ago

Bethanny

Employee

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5.6K Messages

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58.9K Points

@MsTessie Hi !

Thanks for the feedback regarding where we display it. I have sent in a ticket to confirm why it is not showing under the ratings on the examples you mentioned, will let you know when we get an answer. I believe the rest of you queries were answered by Col below, but let us know if there are any outstanding.

Cheers!

2 years ago

Col_Needham

Employee

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8.2K Messages

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190.5K Points

2 years ago

@MsTessie To provide a little extra context to @Bethanny’s reply above, and answering your questions:

1. In addition to being available in the News tab, you can also scroll down any IMDbPro title page and there’s a link to the external sites in the bottom right of the page, in the “Ratings Breakdown” section as in the link to https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt17351924/websites on https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt17351924/

2. We are not sure what you mean here, sorry. Trailers on the main IMDb site are displayed at the top of the /title/ pages, as in https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17351924/ and on IMDbPro they are on the Videos tab, as in https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt17351924/videos

3. Trailers are shown at the top of IMDb.com title pages as in our example in #2 above; they are less visible on IMDbPro (but still in the Video tab) as the two sites serve different purposes for different audiences.

4. IMDb Title Scorecard is a free service, introduced in the early 2010s so your comment about driving IMDbPro subscriptions does not apply, sorry.

5. But they do appear in the Videos tab, please see https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt17351924/videos

It seems the source of the confusion here is that only trailers uploaded via the free IMDb Title Scorecard service are included directly on IMDb. The links to trailers on other external sites are exactly that — links to other sites.

Please let us know if any of the above is not clear. Please also see https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/industry-professional/imdb-title-scorecard/GR6ELNEMQZADBQ2B & https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/images-videos/how-can-i-add-video-content-to-imdb/GTAM5N8FE79XSY3E

It is always worth checking the content on https://help.imdb.com/ before contacting the help desk.

Hope this helps.

MsTessie

3 Messages

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90 Points

Thanks for taking the time to provide a detailed reply. You can read about my ongoing concerns in my detailed reply to Bethanny. Maybe something good will come out of our discussion that helps contributors and folks using IMDB for research.

I have to say, having been referred to numerous times to the "How can I add video content to IMDB" article that you linked to above at https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/images-videos/how-can-i-add-video-content-to-imdb/GTAM5N8FE79XSY3E

that this article does not mention the news feed at all nor does it explain where a trailer link would live on IMDB Pro.

I did read the article. Several times to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious.The last thing I want to do with my time is engage repeatedly with customer support who fails to understand what I'm asking, so I eventually had to spend more time engaging here.

As for IMDb Title Scorecard, I'm not typically a producer on a project but I might be helping them get the project onto IMDb. Just seems odd that as an actor, I can post external link videos with images on my acting page, but contributors to a project page (title page?) who are not in IMDb Title Scorecard get their links relegated to the nether regions of the page in IMDb or to a misleading tab called "News" on IMDb Pro.

Also wanted to add that I don't see links at the bottom of the IMDb Pro page for the project., though I did see them at the bottom of yours as you kindly pointed out. See my screenshot below. What trigger the links to appear there, as they do appear in the News tab for this title but not at the bottom. And how would we know this is another location for external link text? Is that info in the help pages somewhere?

If I'm missing something, please let me know.

Thanks again to you and Bethanny for responding, and sorry if I sound cranky.

2 years ago

Bethanny

Employee

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5.6K Messages

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58.9K Points

@MsTessie Hi!

You can now see the external links under the ratings on your titles too.

Cheers!

2 years ago

MsTessie

Where do External Links appear on IMDB PRO pages for projects

Bethanny

MsTessie

Bethanny

Col_Needham

MsTessie

Bethanny

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