Video SEO - YouTube - Transcriptions - Dupe Content

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

If you are embedding video from your YouTube channel on your webpages and publishing transcription copy underneath it & your YouTube channel also has transcriptions , is this duplicate content ?

If so which instance of the transcription should you remove (i presume YT since your website page is what you want to rank) ?

Also a side question re video seo & YT, ive heard peeps say that embedding a video from YT to your site is a great backlink, but surely its actually a link from your website to YT, not the other way round ?

Cheers

Dan

ps - any other video seo tips or links to recent quality articles much appreciated

[Dan-Lawrence]

The video is already produced hence didnt have the opportunity to define goals from outset.  Being the projects seo im looking to get rich snippets and conversions.  The videos are tv program editions.

Im asking for dedicated page per video with added media such as transcriptions (descriptions as a minimum).  However looking very unlikely will get dedicated page and only thumbnails directory hence trying to decide how aggressively to push for dedicated page or settle for YT as an alternative.

Im obviously also after links so doubt YT option worthwhile although thinking people may well search for programme archives on YT to watch old editions hence programmes should be uploaded there too for that reason (otherwise they will find other peoples uploads of lesser quality old editions and with no particular structure or content control such as descriptions).

Hence to maintain brand ownership of videos archive on YT im thinking of suggesting uploading to YouTube as well as trying to get the max out of self hosting on site for SEO (links, snippets & conversions too)

[PhilNottingham]

I'd say make that decision entirely based on goals and the content type - not the restrictions of the platform.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Great advice thanks Phil !!

So if on site video display options are pretty limited (i.e. not being able to provide dedicated pages per video only thumbnail type directories) then would you say its prob best to choose YouTube over website hosting ?

All Best

Dan

[PhilNottingham]

Hi Dan,

In short - no, it won't be considered "duplicate content" if a video is visible on YouTube and is also embedded on a website using another platform - but it can cause other problems. The main one is cannibalisation of your specific goal... if you content is hosted on your site and on YouTube... you can find that YouTube will outrank your site for certain keywords if it gets much traction. Additionally, such an implementation isn't very good for YouTube optimisation, because in order to get a video ranking well on YouTube - you want to be able to drive as many views and embeds with it as possible. So, in short, it's just not very strategic and many cannibalise the effectiveness of everything you're trying to achieve.

Another point to make is that I have never actually come across a series of videos that I think is appropriate for both platforms - so ask yourself whether a YouTube presence is actually going to be valuable with these videos and whether or not a better option would be to just re-edit the content to ensure you have slightly different videos for each platform - specifically targeted to the goal in question.

Additional, no - You can't get backlinks from YouTube videos. If the YouTube Api is used around a different player, this is not that different in practice, from just embedding the YouTube videos... it will still count as a link to YouTube/embedded version of that video.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Good Morning Phil,

Sorry another 2 quick questions re video seo:

The project in this case is hosting their own video and embedding on their webpages, due to the nature of the videos i think it lends itself well to YT and the brand certainly wants a YT channel IMO. If they put these on YT too is 2 different video locations (their site & YT) considered duplicate content or undesirable in any other way ?

Unfortunately due to nature of site architecture with pages being dynamically generated, devs saying cant give each vid its own page and need a page of thumbnails etc which from reading the info in your above posted links wont work very well. Hence think its good to have on YT too since wont be able to take advantage of the various methodologies in your article/s. Just a bit worried having in 2 locations will cause probs.

Also If we did use YouTube but developer hosting the videos would that then count as backlink from YT (similar to one of my original questions that embedding YT hosted vids on your site are more of a backlink to YT) ?  Or due to the nature of uploading vids to YT they are always YT hosted

Cheers

Dan

[Dan-Lawrence]

Nice 1 Phil much appreciated

[PhilNottingham]

In short - no, this isn't seen as duplicate content at all.

However, you are right in what you say that an embed is more like a link back to the YouTube.com version of your video.

If this is a sort of "blogging" video, expect the YouTube version to rank higher than your post.

More information about Video SEO..... where do I begin?

http://moz.com/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo

http://moz.com/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy

http://www.distilled.net/training/video-marketing-guide/

http://wistia.com/learning/advanced-seo-with-distilled

http://moz.com/blog/the-marketing-value-of-youtube

http://moz.com/blog/how-to-leverage-investment-in-video-to-build-more-links

[Dan-Lawrence]

thanks for the info

[AaronHenry]

Sorry - guess I did not read your question correctly.  I believe the general rule of thumb is that it would be considered duplicate content.  I went through MOZ's youtube and it appears that they write original content for the video description and save the transcription for onsite only.  I currently do the same thing and have not noticed any penalties.  Hopefully this helps a little bit.

[Dan-Lawrence]

I dont mean the transcription being a duplicate of the video, i know it deifnately isnt

What im asking is a transcription on the YT channel considered duplicate content with the transcription on the Webpage (or elsewhere for that matter ?

[AaronHenry]

I've thought of this myself actually.  However, I do not believe it is counted as duplicate content (at least not for now).  For example, MOZ does whiteboard Fridays, which are awesome, and they certainly use a transcript for content beneath the embedded video. Example

I could see this eventually being a duplicate content issue and penalty in the future if the strategy is abused, but I think the necessity for the hearing impaired and accessibility issues might prevent this from being an all out penalty.

My limited logic and conclusions are that you are safe for now, but may need to change the content up in the future if SEs decide to penalize this type of activity.  Just my 2 cents!