Submitting your metadata to aggregators like IMDB, WikiData, or cultural heritage organizations can help with discoverability, attribution, and preservation depending on the location and purpose of where you submit it.
IMDb
IMDb, the largest database for tv and film metadata, has a strong relationship with Google. Adding your metadata to their system can leverage the expensive investment they’ve made for your benefit. IMDb metadata submissions are reviewed by their staff, and must meet their quality standards.
To contribute to IMDb you need to register: https://www.imdb.com/registration/signin
IMDb data is very structured so your contributions need to meet their strict formats. There is a significant amount of help available here: https://help.imdb.com/contribution
To add a title not currently in IMDb
Before adding a new title review IMDb’s guidance and criteria for new listings:
https://help.imdb.com/article/contribution/titles/adding-a-new-title/GNXTSSVTJTFCRZGN
Titles are not automatically added – your contribution will go to IMDb Data Managers for review and inclusion in the database
To add a new title:
- Log in to your account
- Submit your title using the New Title Form: https://contribute.imdb.com/updates?update=title&ref_=helpms_ch_t_newtitle_ra
- Complete as many sections of the form as possible – cast, crew, url for video hosted online, contextual information such as film festival showings etc (poor quality/unverifiable metadata may cause your submission to be rejected)
- After submitting your New Title Form you can track your contribution on your Contributor page
To update an existing listing
- Log in to your account
- Find the Name Page or Title Page that you want to update
- Scroll to the bottom and click the yellow edit button
- A list of sections available for editing will appear
- Scroll to the relevant section(s) you want to update and select them
- Use the dropdown menu to enter your update type (adding, correcting, deleting)
- Make your edits (enter additions and corrections, mark deletions and enter a reason)
- When you are finished editing select Check These Updates to run the auto-checker
- If the auto-checker highlights your changes in Green you can click Submit These Updates
- If the auto-checker flags any errors try re-doing your updates and double-checking your formatting, then check them again
You’ll receive an email notification that your updates were submitted and they will be forwarded to IMDb’s data managers for processing.
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- Metadata for Video
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- Metadata for Internal File Management
- How (and why) to submit your data to repositories
- Submitting your Metadata to IMDb
- Common Metadata Languages
- Standardized Metadata
- Linked Data