Hi Jennifer,

In short - the answer to both your questions is No. What you're doing is absolutely fine

With YouTube Closed captions - you can upload multiple files - covering multiple languages/descriptive transcripts/speech transcripts. All sorts if you really want to. There is no difference from an SEO perspective between the "captions" model with timecodes or simply the text "transcript". Both are ultimately read like copy text for the video.

The YouTube video embed on an external site is read as an independent media element with the uploaded transcript file as meta-data applied to that media. Even if the on-page copy contains the identical text, it appears as a different form to the engines and is valuable to users as well - there is no "duplicate content" risk, as the content is presented in totally different formats.

I would continue with what you're currently doing - which sounds good :).

Phil

Im afraid i haven't yet found one that is remotely good outside of Wistia (but that's paid).

I'd suggest using excel to put together the elements and then turn the output into plain text - shouldn't be too painstaking, but you will need some element of manual input - i.e. defining the URL, content location and thumbnail location at a minimum.

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.

Hey Karen,

My answer would basically be - "You probably don't want to do both, but it really depends on the kind of content you have, what you're trying to achieve and whether there's demand for it on YouTube".

The important thing to remember about YouTube is that it's a social and community platform as much as a hosting service. It really isn't the appropriate place for every kind of video content so you need to take the perspective of "Would this video be relevant for anyone stumbling across it on YouTube without prior knowledge of my brand". You'll find that people don't go to YouTube with brand focused queries very often and nor do they often click back from a video to a third party site. This means the main value you're going to get for the platform will be brand awareness (see here for more details: http://moz.com/blog/the-marketing-value-of-youtube) but in order to achieve that you need to have content the YouTube audience care about. How to videos may well fit into that category, but only if they're solving generic problems and aren't specifically focused around your specific products.

The additional problem with putting videos on both Wistia (or self hosting) and YouTube is that YouTube can end up outranking your site for branded queries, which means you can potentially drive commercially focused traffic (those who may end up actually buying something!) to YouTube rather than your site and from here it's then very difficult to drive them back to your site (click through rates from YouTube are normally less than 1%); this means that, in essence, you can be unnecessarily adding and additional step in your product conversion funnel for some organic  searches.

So - in short, I probably wouldn't recommend it, but to start with you need to really work out what you're trying to achieve with your videos and determine who the audience is for this content specifically. I've written some more extensive articles about this issue in particular, so if you want more info I advise you to go have a read.

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

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

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

I hope that's useful!

Phil

Hey Rich,

So there's a few problems here which i think are preventing your videos from being indexed.

1. The main one is around your bespoke video player and the Javascript / Lightbox delivery - which, while potentially elegant from a users perspective, isn't great for Google. Currently the flash video player is only being delivered by a JS trigger and Google probably aren't picking it up.
2. You have more than one video on each page (and tons of duplicate videos) - All the "play product video" links at the bottom of the page are more lightboxes, which means you have 34 .mp4 files visible within the page source. Therefore, which video should google rank for the page?! It's not clear and with each video also replicated across many pages, it becomes a minefield for the Robots to navigate.
3. No Video XML sitemap

To get things fixed, i suggest you implement either a static flash player file within the base HTML (.swf or .flv) or do the whole thing with HTML5 video elements and try and find a way to "reveal" the video file without using lightboxes or JS. (i would plump for the latter).

You should also fix the "play video" links throughout the rest of the page to static HTML links - rather than lightboxes with more videos.

Lastly, of course, submit an XML video Sitemap. He's an example for the page you included - replicate this for the rest of your pages.

<loc>www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-coffee-table/1149.html</loc>

video:thumbnail_lochttp://static.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/media/gbu0/prod350/rus18-4f0f1c68245c6.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>

video:titleRustic Solid Oak 4 Drawer</video:title>

video:descriptionThe Rustic Oak Four Drawer Coffee Table features a traditional farmhouse styling with ample storage space</video:description></video:description>

video:content_lochttp://video.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/rustic/Rustic-Solid-Oak-4-Drawer-Coffee-Table.mp4</video:content_loc>

video:duration56</video:duration>

video:publication_date2012-03-14T18:30:15+00:00</video:publication_date>

video:family_friendlyyes</video:family_friendly>

video:tagSolid Oak 4 Drawer</video:tag>

video:liveno</video:live>

If you change all that and it still doesn't work - let me know.

If it does work, you owe me a beer

All the best,

Phil

The answer would be - neither.

It's not quite correct to describe something as being preferable to Google in this instance (because ultimately Google want everyone to put all their videos on YouTube then embed them everywhere so they can make loads of money in ad revenue), but in terms of SEO for an eCommerce site, and assuming your videos are to some extend product focused pieces - you should avoid YouTube altogether, because it can cannibalise your rankings, while giving you very little benefit in terms of seeding on YouTube.com (people don't go to YouTube to find products to buy...)

I've written about this extensively here: http://moz.com/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy and here http://moz.com/blog/the-marketing-value-of-youtube

So, your best bet is using a third party paid hosting platform, e.g. Wistia, Vzaar etc... where you can retain full control of the videos and use them to drive traffic to your site and generate leads/sales.

In terms of implementation, It probably won't matter a great deal, as long as your videos are visible to Googlebot on pageload and not delivered dynamically with JavaScript etc..

All you need to do then to get the rich snippet is submit a video sitemap.

Hi ZoraS,

In short - yes, I think this site is pretty spammy and I wouldn't recommend putting in the effort to get links there. More than likely these links won't help your rankings much anyway, while at scale they could actively harm you.

Thanks Dana! Spot on - that's exacly what I would say :).

Hi Lesley,

I know this is what Moz does, but to be honest with you - I'm not convinced this is the best move for them. WBF's on YouTube do very little for them so far as I can tell and overall I think concentrating on one channel (either YouTube or self hosted - dependent on goals) will be more effective.

It's just like trying to have your cake and eat it. Sorry Roger!

However, the Moz example isn't really relevant here anyway, since the content is more "blogging" focused and informational, rather than being tied to a specific product.

1. As you say, If you're that concerned about privacy - then you shouldn't make the video available online. It's extremely difficult/nigh-on impossible to stop those who want to pirate something from pirating it; so if you're that bothered, my advice would be don't put the video online.

That said...

RTMP S3 will likely be more secure for you than Vimeo or Wistia, because anyone who researches the way those platforms structure their URLS and unique codes will probably be able to figure out a download link and pull out the content.

2. Wistia's analytics is WAY better, plus it can integrate with GA.

3. Wistia has a ton of tools, called "Labs" and the platform is much more flexible than vimeo in terms of the functionality and embed style. A lot of third party apps will work with both platforms, but it really depends what specifically you're looking to do.

For my money, Wistia is much better than Vimeo Pro across the board, with a much better toolset - but Vimeo Pro is extremely cheap. Ultimately, if you can afford Wistia, I'd go with that.