Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Is it good or bad to add noindex for empty pages, which will get content dynamically after some days
We have followers, following, friends, etc pages for each user who creates account on our website. so when new user sign up, he may have 0 followers, 0 following and 0 friends, but over period of time he can get those lists go up. we have different pages for followers, following and friends which are allowed for google to index. When user don't have any followers/following/friends, those pages looks empty and we get issue of duplicate content and description too short. so is it better that we add noindex for those pages temporarily and remove noindex tag when there are at least 2 or more people on those pages. What are side effects of adding noindex when there is no data on those page or benefits of it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | swapnil120 -
Onsite Videos- Multiple on a Single Page- How to Optimize?
I have a specific page which needs multiple videos. A primary video of the client (Youtube Video) and two secondary videos with patient testimonials (Wistia Videos). Here is the actual page: https://www.johnbarrasdds.com/houston-tmj-dentist/ My understanding is Google only values the first video on a page. Is this accurate and either way what is the best practice for how to post the second group of videos and gain SEO value? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mgordon0 -
Can I add external links to my sitemap?
Hi, I'm integrating with a service that adds 3rd-party images/videos (owned by them, hosted on their server) to my site. For instance, the service might have tons of pictures/videos of cars; and then when I integrate, I can show my users these pictures/videos about cars I might be selling. But I'm wondering how to build out the sitemap--I would like to include reference to these images/videos, so Google knows I'm using lots of multimedia. How's the most white-hat way to do that? Can I add external links to my sitemap pointing to these images/videos hosted on a different server, or is that frowned upon? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOdub0 -
Should I add no-follow tags to my widget links?
Matt Cutts recommended in a video in 2013 to add rel="nofollow" on widget links that link back to your website. Some background of my company: We're a software company for website chat. There's a 'powered by' link in our widgets that links back from our users' websites to our website. Currently these are all follow links. I checked out the links of our competitors, and it seems none of them have no follow on their widget backlinks. This, together with the fact that the video is quite old and information on this issue rather scarce, makes me doubt whether we should change our widget backlinks to no follow. Does anyone have thoughts on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Maximuxxx0 -
Embedding Video for SEO? YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia?
I believe Vimeo has the advantages of being able to embed your video on your website without advertising and the ability to brand the player with your company name. Can't do that with YouTube. However obviously Google give a bit more weight to YouTube videos in search results. But I'm talking about ranking the website, not the video. If the objective is to provide the biggest boost to the website's ranking (not the individual video), is it best to embed the YouTube video or can you post the video on both YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia and embed the Vimeo or Wistia video? My gut feeling is that Google would see the direct linkage between the video on YouTube and the website it's embedded on and potentially that would have (albeit probably small) more benefit in the website's ranking than embedding the Vimeo or Wistia video? HOWEVER, re the SEO claims on this Wistia page true? Would the best strategy be to use Wistia for embedding and then also post the videos on a YouTube channel for maximum exposure? From Wistia: _Vimeo, like YouTube, is a powerful domain for SEO, but when you host your videos on these platforms, you are not doing your website's SEO a favor. When you upload your video to Vimeo or YouTube, the search engines are indexing the original url, not your website's. In contrast, when you embed a Wistia video on your website, your website gains all of the SEO benefits. Vimeo videos are ranked to drive traffic to Vimeo to keep users on their platform. Wistia videos drive traffic to your website—not ours._
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jazee1 -
Schema markup for video playlists?
We're adding schema markup for all of our videos, but some videos exist only in a playlist (all integrated into one URL, and loaded after a javascript call). Per Google: "Make sure that your video and schema.org markup are visible without executing any JavaScript or Flash." https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2413309?hl=en So we know the current implementation won't work for schema markup... What's the best practice for adding schema markup for video playlists? Should we host all of these videos on individual URLs (but then they appear twice) or is there some other workaround?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
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
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PerfectPitchConcepts0 -
Schema.org and YouTube Videos
Hi, Does anyone know how to implement schema.org markup with YouTube embedded videos? Thanks Carlos
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carlos-R0