Best way to host video?
-
Hi,
We are planning to host videos on our site for the first time. It looks like YouTube is a bit too over focused on ads these days for commercial use, can anyone recommend any better video hosting services?
I also realize that hosting somewhere like YouTube has little SEO benefit, am I better off hosting them on our site if possible?
Please share your experiences with the various services and methods of hosting.
Thanks
-
I think meaning that it may not endorse different films after your video has completed playing. You will possibly nevertheless have all the ads shooting up during the video though which is not ideal. like you can see here on the amazon gift card website.
-
Update from April 2012 -but the content in this post stands http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo
-
Interesting, any update for June 2012? Just about to do this.
-
No problem Keri!
-
Thanks for the great answer Phil! It'll serve as a great reference answer. We've had several questions come through along these lines over the past few months.
-
Thanks Robert, Glad you found it useful!
If you want a bit more detail on some video stuff, I have written a couple of longer posts around the topic:
http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/creating-awesome-videos-for-seo/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-stuff-done-by-video
and Dave Sottimano put together a good guide for YouTube optimisation earlier in the year:
http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/youtube-seo/
Hopefully they might help your endeavours too.
-
Phil,
This is one of the most concise, well written docs on video streaming and the Internet I have seen. Frankly, I am sending it to several of my staff and I will re-read it several times as well. On the ads, the problem is not that they are there - it is that many clients freak out when they see a competitor show up at the end when they have placed the YouTube feed on their site to run their commercial. Frankly, If not for that, we would do more with it and some clients when informed ahead of time have no problem.
Thanks for a well written answer that went above and beyond.
Robert
-
Great, thanks Phil
-
No, it's actually the other way around. Check out http://www.youtube.com/distilledseo to see what i've done with Distilled's channel.
If you go into your YouTube account settings page http://www.youtube.com/account_manage then scroll down, there is an option to "allow adverts" or "do not allow adverts". choosing the second option will prevent pop-ups and other adsThe pop-ups are essentially PPC ads and only appear for accounts which have high enough views to be offered monetization. YouTube default settings do not have pop-up ads, you have to explicitly allow them.
-
I think that means that it won't recommend other videos after your video has finished playing. You will probably still have all the ads popping up during the video though which is not ideal.
-
Vimeo offer a great service, but be aware that the original focus of vimeo was a creative content, rather than a commercial service and so they don't allow you to upload anything blatantly commercial or marketing focussed unless you pay for the pro package, which is a relatively inexpensive $199 per year. If you have something nicely designed and artistic though (even if it is a bit commercial in nature), you may get away with it.
I wouldn't be so down on YouTube because of the ads. Its very easy to embed YouTube videos on your site, the content is mobile friendly and you can choose whether or not to allow adverts on any of your videos. Plus, YouTube gets indexed very quickly and you can optimise your content for search within the platform to achieve greater overall exposure. YouTube also has very smart variable bit-rate progressive encoding, so the service is excellent if you have very high-definition content but want people to be able to watch it without spending any time buffering on low bandwidth connections. The main downside to YouTube is it's security and that ads for other videos will come up in the embedded player on your site after your video has finished playing.
If you want to maintain a fully branded and corporate feel or secure you video from privacy, services like Wistia, Brightcove and Vzaar are all very good and simple to use, though will charge you for hosting based on bandwidth use. Wistia is particularly good because it submits sitemaps on your behalf which can aid you in getting blended results for your videos.
Alternatively, if you have the time and resources, then you could build your own HTML5 player and host the content on your own servers or through a cloud system like Amazon Web Services. There are some plugins and free apps which claim to assist with this, but i haven't tried any of them out.
The question which will ultimately define the answer to your initial query is "What am I trying to achieve with this video?" If you just want pure exposure, then i would host it on YouTube, embed the content on your site, submit a sitemap and optimise both the YouTube page and the page on your site for the same target keyword. If you want something to simply enrich your own website, but lock down the content to ensure any video views happen on your own site (which is what you want to do if your focus is link-building and referrals) then i would pay out the money for a service like Brightcove or Wistia.
-
I was looking at a youtube account. When video is embedded, options exist to not show display related video options at the end of the video. This seems to imply that you can have youtube videos on a website without ads. Am I seeing something wrong?
-
I am looking for this solution as well. Looking at Wistia right now. Not sure how it compares to the other options.
-
If you use Vimeo, you may still want to put videos on Youtube. This will get you increased exposure through Youtube when viewers look at competitors videos.
-
Another vote for Vimeo, its fast to load videos and really easy to use.
-
Both Vimeo and Viddler are good options. Each have pro/cons depending on your needs. Most times I lean towards Vimeo, I think their user experience is easier and their organization of content is nicer.
-
We use Vimeo for many of our clients with local business due to the ads that follow on YouTube. To our local business clients, when they have a video piece on the site and it ends and the option is there to pick a video from their competitor......well, it is not a good option usually.
If we are not as concerned with the ads that trail using the YouTube feed, we will go ahead with the it but let the client make the choice.Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can you get rich snippets for Youtube hosted videos?
My website has several videos, mostly product reviews and tutorials. I'd like for these videos to show in the SERPs with rich snippets, but I am hosting them through Youtube. What is your experience with Youtube hosted videos? Do they generate rich snippets? Or will Google always rank the Youtube video over your web page?
Image & Video Optimization | | TMI.com1 -
My wistia videos are not being index by Google. Does anyone know what can be happening?
I have the wistia site map on my robots.txt file and I also manually submit the site map to google. It shows that my videos were submitted successfully but they are not being indexed. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | bedbugsupply0 -
Any special way to rank a youtube vid in google page 1 for a kw?
I've failed to rank a youtube video before , I don't know why.. but do you guys have something that can help me to rank a youtube video to google page one? backlinks? If yes, then what type of backlinks? Just like backlinking articles and websites? thx for the input guys
Image & Video Optimization | | martino8880 -
Hosting Video both on YouTube AND Independently on Site?
I've got a pretty good handle on the pros / cons of hosting on videos on a free service like YouTube vs. hosting them independently with something like Wistia. But one question I've never heard answered is "Why not host the same video both ways?" Why wouldn't I publish a video to YouTube (to get the exposure and better chance to rank) and then also host the same video independently on my site with Wistia (to get a second listing in the SERPs, as well as a thumbnail that links to my site)? Is this seen as a spammy practice? Duplicate content? Would love to hear your thoughts on this as it's something that seems to potentially be a win-win, but haven't heard it discussed. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | AndrewY0 -
YouTube Video Transcription
Hello there! I'm wondering if there is any legalities involved with transcribing a video on YouTube and posting the transcription on a site that does not have the rights to the video while sourcing the video and giving credit.
Image & Video Optimization | | OnlineMarketingGuy0 -
Video Rankings and Optimization Issues
I have noticed for some pages of the site I am working on that I see the video that is posted on that page ranking a lot higher than the page itself or the page does not rank at all, just the video. I'm curious to know if these two can technically be competing for rankings and if Google sees that the page does not need to rank because it chooses to put the related video into the SERPs. Also, has anyone seen any differences in the way videos rank based on where it's hosted (youtube, wistia, etc)? I would think this is common sense not to but still unsure, is it bad practice to keep videos hosted on multiple sites (currently I am adding videos on a new host, but have not deleted the old ones on Youtube yet)?
Image & Video Optimization | | Hakkasan0 -
VSEO - Is backlinks help youtube video to rank well??
hey, I made a test & got backlinks to 2 youtube videos of mine and saw what should happening in next few days..but nothing got! I didn't get update or change in my videos even if the keywords are low competitions.. but when I read many posts & experts say that getting backlinks to your youtube video or VSEO count by google and we should doing it! the only way I've found to improve your youtube video ranking in google is to add it in blog & use video sitemap! but I'm also use video to direct affiliate link & there where I think backlinks should work to help me. I would to know from your experience is that worth to do or not or if backlinks for youtube are link ping we should do it directly when we upload video? PS: any info or idea you've it can be a very helpful solution for all! thnx
Image & Video Optimization | | akitmane0 -
Video SERP question
Hello MOZ Helpers.. Sometimes video results pop up in Uiversal search..for example for "recycle paint" my video for recycle paint residing on my website shows up on a Universal SERP SEE IMAGE 1..This happens even when I use an ip mask or change local..the confusing part is why my personal version trumps my youtube version SEE IMAGE 2. What metric(s) is Google using to rank videos, and what kind of benefit does this provide if the video points to your site vs. a video service like youtube or 5min? I have attached 2 images with IMGUR but search "recycle paint" to recreate [" target="_blank">>](<img src= "Hosted by imgur.com") [" target="_blank">>](img src= "Hosted by imgur.com") [http://imgur.com/tdCVM.jpg](a href= "Hosted by imgur.com")" target="_blank">a> [http://imgur.com/tdCVM.jpg](a href= "Hosted by imgur.com")" target="_blank">a> [" target="_blank">>](<img src= "Hosted by imgur.com") [" target="_blank">>](<img src= "Hosted by imgur.com") [" target="_blank">>](<img src= "Hosted by imgur.com")
Image & Video Optimization | | johnshearer0