Posting same video on both Vimeo and Youtube
-
A client likes the control of Vimeo Pro for embedding videos on site, but for search purposes would like to create a YouTube channel with the same videos, perhaps with altered titles and descriptions.
This is the same video content in two places - will we run into duplicate content issues?
Thank you,
Stephen
-
Thank you for posting here! We heard your response at Moz and considered the matter settled.
-
I disagree with your assessment and advice here.
Through vimeo pro (which isn't the same as vimeo - confusing, i know) you can get your own site to rank rather than YouTube.com or Vimeo.com, which would likely be the preferable option here. Linking them together then becomes a bad idea - since it makes little sense for users.
Additionally, Google won't rank whichever it thinks is the original, as it has no mechanism to work out whether videos hosted on different platforms are the same thing. In such situations, Google actually rank whichever page is stronger and more relevant - which, for any site with a fairly weak domain - is normally the YouTube.com version.
-
That's not actually true Martin.
YouTube very very rarely drives much traffic back to your site. If you want traffic to your site, you're much better off securely hosting the content and driving traffic from Google with rich snippets - rather than forcing users to go to YouTube and then from there navigate to your site.
-
Hi Stephen,
I'd advise you to think of this approach as akin to posting a blog post on your own site and then also posting it on someone else's site as a guest blog post with an adjusted Title and meta description.
It's not going to get you "penalised" for duplicate content as such, but It's hardly a great strategy in the majority of cases - as it will force you to cannibalise possible traffic and link equity across the locations.
First of all, I'd really question why your client wants to do this. If they think that somehow they have to have content on YouTube as it represents a potential traffic source - I'd definitely be keen to point out (in spite of what others have said in answer to your question) that click through rate from YouTube videos back to websites in links and annotations is extremely low. It's very hard to drive any significant amount of traffic from YouTube except through putting videos out at extreme scale (more details here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-marketing-value-of-youtube)
Secondly - I'd suggest asking yourself whether the content in question is really appropriate for a YouTube audience anyway? Do the videos hold their value outside of your clients domain? Is there any search volume on YouTube (use the YouTube keyword tool) for the keywords you're going to be targeting?
If you do want to go down the YouTube + securely hosted route for the same content, then I've detailed the exact technical approach required here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo (approach 4) but bear in mind that it's extremely rare to have content stylistically appropriate for both securely hosting on your site with a paid hosting solution (so you get traffic) and seeding on YouTube (so you can build brand awareness through that community). If the videos in question are commercial or product focused, I can basically all but guarantee they won't be worth putting on YouTube and they'll potentially outrank your clients site while diluting the overall traffic to the site itself.
So... in short, it's not a problem if you have the right kind of content - but 9 times out of 10 it's not a particularly smart strategy.
I hope that's useful!
Cheers,
Phil.
-
use vimeo as default and Youtube for top3 videos. Youtube will increase trafic for the site and your site will use vimeo best quality videos
-
I would also have a look at Rich Snippets, that way the one you intend to trying to rank can be displayed in the results as you would like
We have used them for lots of videos for clients and got great success optimisting the results we are looking for
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=162163&topic=1088474&ctx=topic
-
You should be completely fine. If for some reason there is a duplicate content issue, Google will just show whichever it thinks is the original video. Giving them different titles and descriptions should also help to differentiate them.
Since you are hoping to take advantage of search for your videos, it will be helpful to link from one of your videos to the other. I'd suggest putting a link on the Vimeo (on the Vimeo site) version pointing to the YouTube version, since that is the one you are hoping to rank.
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
-
Determining if video is a option for SERP Results?
Hi Guys, Looking to potentially create youtube videos and rank them on Google Australia for keywords around cosmetic brands. For example ASAP or Napoleon Perdis If you look at the top 10 SERP results example: https://d.pr/i/Tbkb5m for ASAP. There are no videos ranking which I think is strange or a very good opportunity. How would you determine if Google would rank a video on SERP results if there is none already? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kayl870 -
Should I redirect off topic blog posts?
We launched a store on top of a popular blog. The blog had nothing to do with the store. The blog has a lot of backlinks and traffic, but our store is now our primary business. I am concerned that the off topic blog content may be affecting or ability to rank better for the core store business. Should we delete or redirect the old blog content to another website to improve the SEO for our store?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seo-mojo1 -
How does putting a trial sign up code mid-blog post effect SEO? Do you think it will make my content seem less pleasing, therefor decrease the page rank??
I'm working on driving trials for our product - we have a number of blog posts that rank on page #1 of Google, and we get 2-3 trial sign ups per day from them. I'd like to put trial signup boxes about midway down each post to see if I can increase the number of trial signups that come directly from our blog. Do you think I can be "penalized" for this, since it's mid- blog-post content? Do you think Google will view this negatively?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Karibeaulieu0 -
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 -
Is it worth removing date from Blog Posts / Articles
Wondering, is it worth to remove date from articles from seo perspective. Am sure, Google search algorithm would like demote a post written a year back, as against an article on the same post (unless a year old post has very strong Authoritative links) May be it can turn out a bad user experience of removing dates, but if can hide date using Javascripts so as to show it as image to user and hide it from search engines, is it a good idea !!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
CSS gallery, directories, infographic anjd video sites?
If we have some good content (info graphic and video) is there anything wrong with submitting to as many video and info graphic directories and video hosts as possible or are 99% of them as bad as submitting to directories and would we be looking at a penalty? Also another side question, are CSS gallery's and niche pacific directories such as running a printing company and finding directories on (graphic design, craft and art) a bad idea to submit to.in any quantity are they as bad as the free for all directories that Google doesn't like. We compete in a not very hard niche and need to build a few low authority links (build out our link graph) but not low enough to be classed as low quality (Google penalty's in the future). Most of our competitors are happy to submit to anything but we wan the site to last.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Schema markup for videos: Are video schema tags only for use on video hosted by a site or do they also apply to embedded videos hosted on YouTube?
We do not currently have a native video hosting solution for our site and instead embed videos that are hosted on YouTube. Can video schema markup be used for YouTube hosted video? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lwalker0 -
Adding Links Under Embedded Videos?
What's the current opinion of adding do-follow links under video embed codes? Like what Vimeo does. Is this allowed, or does Google/Matt Cutts suggest always no-following these links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DojoGuy0