SEO tip on linking to Youtube videos

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If you create Youtube videos on your own channel and also have a blog, by all means link to your videos, and embed them if you wish. If you link to videos that are not yours however,, here are some currently beneficial tips to maximize traffic on your blog.

#1 - Don't embed video you don't own onto your site, link to the video instead
#2 - Don't link to just one video, linking to 2-3 is better.(more on why this works below)
#3 - Treat Youtube like any other UGC site. Use nofollow, open in new window etc.
#4 - Skip the cruft in the video by linking directly to the exact section that helps your content. To do this pause the video where you want YOUR visitors to start watching, right click on the video, and select "copy video URL at current time".
$5 - Don't link using a Youtube.com url, Use the Youtu.be shortened link the copy button provides. Why? The copy button provides a full url but the youtube.com link applies the video address as a parameter. It would be like linking to the homepage over and over, parameters are often ignored in backlinks.



About #2 - Google tends to favor a page that provides multiple examples, not just the example from one source. A page about multiple widget manufacturers will do better than a page from just one manufacturer etc.

"If you want to make your widget with metal check out this metal widget video. If you want to make it with wood instead, here's a video on making it with wood.

And really, do your readers a favor, skip through the intro and unrelated stuff to get right to the timestamp that is most helpful. The rest benefits the video maker but not your audience and that is Youtube's problem, not yours. Besides, if you link to the start your viewers will see ads and sponsor offers they hate more and more and their actions on your site impact YOU. Make em happy.

An embeded video breaks when the owner changes anything. A link to a video is redirected by Youtube if the owner changes anything. Let Google do the work on their sites, you don't want the slowdowns or the constant checking to make sure they still work.

If you agree, disagree, or have tested other ways of using Youtube videos as resources I'd love to hear it.

[Robert Charlton]

#1 - Don't embed video you don't own onto your site, link to the video instead

I understand where you're coming from on this, but I'm not sure I fully agree with this point. It may well be an issue of fair use and of context. Whether you embed may depend on how the original video was intended to be shared. If you are, say, an electronic widget site selling electronic widgets, embedding someone else's demonstration of the product, I agree, is very bad form.

On the other hand, if you are a forum like WebmasterWorld, where you often discuss new developments in Google, it's completely natural to embed Google's video announcement of such a development, which is intended to be shared. It would not be appropriate to embed and individual SEOs analysis of that announcement. It's a point certainly worth further discussion.

#2 - Don't link to just one video, linking to 2-3 is better.(more on why this works below).

Ditto with embedding the highlights, as in #4... but a page with simply a sequence of such links without substantial new viewpoints expressed, can I think get you in trouble.

A sequence of excerpted embeds, IMO, would perhaps be worse. Again, it's a question of how much new one brings to the material.

This is true of written material as well as of video. I also believe that "mixing things up", so to speak, to create lists that might get around Fair Use, can backfire.... From what I've seen of Google's recent AI capabilities, Google is now capable of consolidating algorithms and nesting them.


When embedding, IMO, or in posting an new video... always provide an indication of the video's length. Additonally, if you embed the video, make sure that the timeline of the embedded video is accessible to users. Making the timeline invisible, IMO makes video extremely user-unfriendly. I can't imagine watching a video not knowing whether it was 2 or 20 minutes long, or without being able to stop and start it.

My background in film/video and audio makes me compulsively include "trt" (total running time) on all elements. As time has become a premium, notice that many social self-publishing sites like Medium and Substack have followed in the same vein by providing estimated reading times.


Regarding the mechanics of YouTube embeds, here are some references and thoughts about implementation that I've found helpful.

YouTube Embedded Players and Player Parameters
https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters [developers.google.com]

Making YouTube Videos Resize With Responsive Design
April, 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/video/3006089.htm [webmasterworld.com]

The responsive embed thread is over seven years old and may be dated, but I haven't seen anything newer on the topic. If there is new material, I'd love to see it.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm glad you voiced your disagreement. If the video is an announcement or the forum discussion is about the video by all means embed it. Let people see for themselves what you're talking about.

If you're trying to inform on your website, and it's not a discussion forum, the video is more of a resource to supplement your content. I think even search console is reporting videos that way now..

- pagespeed impact of embedded video
- having to re-check if the video is still there
- making your visitors watch the intro, request to hit subscribe, sponsor offers etc... that impacts your website if it's ON your website.
- Who knows why search console is telling you that an embeded video needs attention, that section seems buggy
- etc the list goes on for the con side, but I do get there are instances where the pro outweighs the negatives.

About #2 - Another example. "You want to pull the flux capacitor off that widget but don't have the specialty tool? Here are two other ways to do it."

Then, after describing a method in your guide, you link directly to the section of someone doing exactly that. When you describe the second method, link to a video of someone doing THAT method, and skip right to that point in the video.

This won't get you in trouble, in fact having multiple methods will get you rewarded in search. I have lots of examples of actual pages benefiting from this.

As things stand right now I'm finding it more practical to link directly to the video, to the specific section of relevance. Google is not going to send traffic to your site because it has a copy of a video from their platform, they will send it for the value-add.

Look in the google search central articles, even they link to videos instead of embeding them now. Heck, they don't even let you see the faces of who is talking right now in the videos, they make you listen only,

Hmm, I wonder if that's still Mueller or if they've given his voice to their AI, lol. j/k