Embedding YouTube Videos And Ranking

[Planet13]

Hi there, Everyone:

I am interested in possibly embedding videos in our site (from youtube and other sources)and then providing detailed text commentary about the videos.

I am assuming that having the videos themselves will provide no particular boost in rankings, but that our comments about the videos might. Also, we would allow users to comment, which might help with page ranking too (and will hopefully lead to mentions / likes in social media as well).

so my questions are:

1) Does this sound like a good way to leverage existing content, generate new content (via our commentary) and increase social interaction (i.e., getting more Facebook likes)?

2) Are there legal ramifications to using the embed code for a video posted on google if it turns out whomever posted the video did not have permission from the publisher?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[goodroi]

i am not sure you would be able to get people to stay on your site. youtube already allows for people to comment and does a good job connecting related videos.

user generated content (ugc) can be incredible but it can also be a disaster than does not help your profits or rankings. a large amount of the value of ugc comes down to the quality level of your communtiy and how well you monitor and handle it. there are definite legal ramifications with how you handle ugc.

[Planet13]

Hi there, googroi:

...i am not sure you would be able to get people to stay on your site. youtube already allows for people to comment...

Yup. I should have mentioned that I would specifically seek out videos that have little or no comments / views from youtube users, but are HIGHLY relevant to the topic I am writing about.

In fact, ideally I would find videos that are NOT in English, but would be of interest to my English language audience. I would translate the dialogue into English (or at least provide a detailed description of what is being discussed / happening in the video in English).

and does a good job connecting related videos.

That is my other concern. when I see a video on youtube, at the end of the video, in the video player itself it has links to related videos. When you embed a video, does it still have the links in the video player at the end of the video? I would imagine those links would lead AWAY from our page to the youtube page...

[leadegroot]

When you embed a video, does it still have the links in the video player at the end of the video?

From memory, you turn the 'related videos' on or off when you ask youtube for the embed code.

[Planet13]

Thank You, leadegroot.

[triggerfinger]

Yes, you can change a lot of stuff about the embedding, including changing it's border and design to fit more slickly within your site. I don't know the specifics but it warrants looking into...

[Simsi]

I am assuming that having the videos themselves will provide no particular boost in rankings

I think you will see an indirect correlation myself. If your videos are engaging, people will stay on the site longer and be more inclined to view other pages thus bringing down the bounce rate, which in turn should help rankings.

[Planet13]

If your videos are engaging, people will stay on the site longer and be more inclined to view other pages thus bringing down the bounce rate, which in turn should help rankings.

that is one thing that I am attempting to accomplish. That is probably the main reason for doing it for me. The text content I have been wanting to write and add to my web site, but it really needs a visual accompaniment.

Fortunately, there is very little posted on you tube in English language, and while the videos can be found there, one would need to know certain terminology to find them easily.

[rowtc2]

For question 1, i think YouTube videos are ok if they come as an added value on a page. Not to put just a video and invite user to comment.