Add Videos Above or Below the Fold?
-
We are considering adding videos to thousands of article pages, and were wondering if it would be better to add video above or below the fold?
They take up quite a bit of space, and push the article content below the fold--would this hurt us?
-
It's true that Google can't read the actual content of a video - but they are getting there slowly but surely. First they'll be able to match audio wave forms, then pick out frames as essentially a selection of image sequences.
What Google can do however, is work out when there is a video on page, what size the frame is, how long the content is and how it's encoded/embedded. For additional information - like you say, transcripts, Schema and video sitemaps can be used.
Therefore, to a certain extent, you can get away with putting duplicate video content across your site and showing different meta elements in the video sitemap - but only if you don't host with YouTube. Google can work out, using the aforementioned methods, whether or not YouTube videos are direct duplicates and prevent you from uploading them.
Nonetheless - videos are always "good" content, by virtue of being a rich media type.
-
Thanks to everyone for the response
Based on everyone's responses, I'm assuming you all think that videos count as google's definition of 'content': http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html
I am concerned though that Google can't actually read the content of a video--what if you added quite a few videos accross a site without adding transcripts or schema.org?
-
Hi Michelle,
So, my answer here is essentially - "Test some stuff out and see what works." There is no algorithmic preference for the exact placement of video on a page and so the decision should be based on user experience, the kind of videos that you are embedding and the focus of the pages in question.
If you have lots of nice unique product-promoting videos, then my temptation would be to suggest putting them prominently on the page, ideally above the fold, but certainly somewhere eye-catching that drives potential customers to click through and watch.
However, if your videos are essentially going up to support existing articles and enhance the overall quality of the page from Googlebot's perspective, but don't add a great deal to the user experience - then you want to make sure the videos are not too prominently placed.
While putting videos below the fold is one option in this instance, something else you can do to reduce the space they take up is reduce the player frame-size, so they fit in a sidebar, or somewhere away from the main body of content.
Ultimately you need to play to your strengths and the typical audience use cases you deal with. If your videos are really good and convert well - emphasize them, if your videos are somewhat low quality and are just there to offer SEO benefit, then don't emphasize them so much.
Phil
-
Put it wherever it makes most sense to your users, it does not matter for SEO. Are you self hosting the videos or embedding links? Self-hosting will give you the most SEO power with a potential to have the vidoe thumbnail in the Google search results.
Make use of:
1. schema.org video object
2. video sitemap
3. opengraph video tags
-
If it is your own original content and more 'valuable' to the end user than the article content then I would put it above the fold.
If it is not then I would keep it below the fold.
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
-
Are RSS Feeds Really Dead? Boating Aggregator Website Looking to Add
Hello! I know that the use of RSS feeds has been thoroughly debated but we are thinking of the using them for a niche website that will be the Drudge Report of the boating world. Well thats the idea at least. 😉 This website will be a culmination a bunch of content from a variety of sources into a one website The idea is that sailors, yactties, fisherman, etc can search/find boats and be presented with content. Also the website will have tons of original content as well but this will take time. So will having the mixture of new/original and rss content cause any potential issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ListrBrands0 -
Is anyone aware about a tool that can be used for tracking YouTube video ranking on SERP & YouTube?
I am looking for a tool that can track ranking position of a YouTube video on SERP and YouTube. An example would be, Suppose I have a video X. I want to know the position of the video for keywords A,B,C on SERP and YouTube. Do let me know your inputs.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SameerBhatia0 -
Google Hangout/YouTube Videos- How to re-market?
I've created multiple high quality Google Hangout videos (now stored as YouTube videos) with a client. Does it make sense to download these videos and re-post to third party sources like Vimeo, DailyMotion,etc. or is this considered duplicative content and no additional G value will apply? I know I have some excellent content in these videos and would like to hear from someone with experience on promoting raw video footage, outside of the YouTube format. Have you had success? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mgordon0 -
Linking to other peoples you tube videos related to our "How to do " articles on our website. Is there Best practices ?
Hi All, We are currently writing some "How to do" articles on our tool hire website and as there is alot of DIY related you tube videos out there, we thought It would be good to link to some of these at the bottom of our articles. From an SEO perspective, is there any do's and don'ts with regards how we should implement this. We are unable to do our videos so linking to others would be our preferred option. Does anyone know if this would give an SEO ranking benefit even though it's an outbound link to someone's video etc. thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Content Above The Fold (strategies)
Does anyone know if using a wide responsive layout that brings content well above the fold on big screens (but still pushes it down on small screens or mobile devices) is a good option? We have an adsense site that just got destroyed and I'm assuming its this new Google algo that's looking at sites with too big of ads above the fold.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Is it ok to add snippet of information taken from other sites on product pages?
Hello here, I own an e-commerce website that sells digital sheet music, and I would like to enrich my product pages with short references to artists/composers related to the product, taken from external websites such as mentions, fresh news, information taken from related videos, cross-references, etc. In other words, I'd like to provide our users with a different kind of informational content that our competitors are currently not offering. We could also think of this like "providing some sort of aggregate content on product pages to enrich the user's experience by providing more information about the product". What do you think are the risks or the benefits of such an approach? And if there are any risks, how to avoid/tackle them? Any thoughts are very welcome! Thank you in advance to anyone.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Is it ok to add rel=CANONICAL into the desktop version on top of the rel="alternate" Tag (Mobile vs Desktop version)
Hi mozzers, We launched a mobile site a couples months ago following the parallel mobile structure with a URL:m.example.com The week later my moz crawl detected thousands of dups which I resolved by implementing canonical tags on the mobile version and rel=alternate onto the desktop version. The problem here is that I still also got Dups from that got generated by the CMS. ?device=mobile ?device=desktop One of the options to resolve those is to add canonicals on the desktop versions as well on top of the rel=alternate tag we just implemented. So my question here: is it dangerous to add rel=canonical and rel=alternate tags on the desktop version of the site or not? will it disrupt the rel=canonical on mobile? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Software to add subtitles to videos?
Hi, I work for a site that focuses on providing health information through videos. We would like to add French subtitles (because we're in Canada) so I'm looking into software that would allow us to add them to our videos. I have no experience with this sort of thing, so I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on the best type of software to use? Thanks! E
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | erinhealthchoices0