undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Do YouTube videos in iFrames get crawled?

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.

Do YouTube videos in iFrames get crawled?

Technical SEO
5
7
2.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • DigitalAnarchy
    DigitalAnarchy last edited by Dec 28, 2015, 6:14 PM

    There seems to be quite a few articles out there that say iframes cause problems with organic search and that the various bots can't/won't crawl them. Most of the articles are a few years old (including Moz's video sitemap article). I'm wondering if this is still the case with YouTube/Vimeo/etc videos, all of which only offer iFrames as an embed option.

    I have a hard time believing that a Google property (YT) would offer an embed option that it's own bot couldn't crawl. However, let me know if that is in fact the case.

    Thanks!

    Jim

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • DigitalAnarchy
      DigitalAnarchy @jtaylormoon last edited by Jan 10, 2016, 10:46 PM Jan 10, 2016, 10:46 PM

      Hi Joricia,

      What do you use for transcribing? I've tried Dragon but it's video transcription function is useless. Don't really have the money to get everything manually transcribed.

      Thanks,

      Jim

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BlueprintMarketing
        BlueprintMarketing @DigitalAnarchy last edited by Jan 4, 2016, 7:19 AM Jan 4, 2016, 7:18 AM

        If you do not want to take the gamble with I-frames and want to be certain that your content is found by Google I would use Wistia it comes with everything that you need in order to have a video indexed the proper embed code, video site map and schema  you can use third-party companies like "speechpad" to transcribe what is being spoken. Wistia also offers  A similar service.

        If you do choose to use YouTube  I would reembed the video with embedly rember you will have to create your own video XML sitemap, add your own schema  you may use  to YouTube content to a website without having to worry about Google not being able to index because the I-frame is converted into a readable code.

        This is a great resource on video SEO. Because I can tell you using Frist hand by using this method it will work.

        https://www.distilled.net/blog/video/video-seo-tactics-to-get-ranked/

        Sorry I did not explain more in my first response.

        Tom

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • DigitalAnarchy
          DigitalAnarchy @MattRoney last edited by Jan 1, 2016, 12:26 AM Jan 1, 2016, 12:26 AM

          They all sort of help, but basically just reconfirms what's out there... nobody seems to know for sure. It seems iframes sometimes get crawled but sometimes not. For Mobile, Google recommends iframes but doesn't say specifically that they get crawled and then elsewhere they say there's limited support for them.

          It's frustrating Google can't just provide clear guidance on the subject.

          While the answer might be Vzaar or Wistia, they have drawbacks and there are times where YouTube is the better choice even if you use one of the other services. So understanding the best way to embed them seems important.

          BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Jan 4, 2016, 7:18 AM Reply Quote 1
          • MattRoney
            MattRoney last edited by Dec 31, 2015, 8:52 PM Dec 31, 2015, 8:52 PM

            Hi Jim!

            Do any of these responses help? 🙂

            DigitalAnarchy 1 Reply Last reply Jan 1, 2016, 12:26 AM Reply Quote 0
            • jtaylormoon
              jtaylormoon last edited by Dec 29, 2015, 5:57 PM Dec 29, 2015, 5:57 PM

              Google actually can crawl iframes, but the support is limited. Try indexing it with robots.txt or add the URL of the frame you'd like to have crawled in Google Webmaster Tools. Since an iframe is basically an HTML document inside an HTML document, it's not going to crawl the whole page together with the iframe, making its SEO value lower than if it were outside the iframe. A good tactic is to also have content surrounding the iframe on page that describes what is inside the iframe.

              And since we're on the topic of videos inside iframes, make sure you have transcripts for it. Google does use those as well as deaf users, so you're doing a good turn for your client and for those with disabilities.

              But to answer the root of your question, you're right we don't actually know if Google has a system setup to specifically make it easier to crawl Youtube videos inside iframes. As transparent as Google has been this past year they're still pretty mysterious overall.

              DigitalAnarchy 1 Reply Last reply Jan 10, 2016, 10:46 PM Reply Quote 1
              • BlueprintMarketing
                BlueprintMarketing last edited by Dec 29, 2015, 3:42 AM Dec 29, 2015, 3:42 AM

                iframes do not get crawled but there are other ways or Google to see videos that link back to your site Moz uses Wistia.com  they are spectacular and their embed code and site map make them easily findable

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • SpodekandCo

                  Is there a way to get a list of all pages of your website that are indexed in Google?

                  I am trying to put together a comprehensive list of all pages that are indexed in Google and have differing opinions on how to do this.

                  Technical SEO | Oct 31, 2019, 8:15 AM | SpodekandCo
                  0
                • Serenawong

                  How do I get coupon information like retailmenot has on the SERPs?

                  Hello can anyone tell me how I can implement the same tactic that RetailMeNot is using to populate coupon information in the search results? They have below there meta description 4 fields labeled:Coupon Codes‎: ‎38, Free Shipping Deals‎: ‎6, Best Discount‎: ‎20% off, & Total Offers‎: ‎49  Is there some schema markup here? Or is this only allowed for RMN I have not seen it elsewhere but want my website coupons page to compete with them in the SERPs. Appreciate your help! dQNkHrb

                  Technical SEO | Nov 11, 2020, 12:41 PM | Serenawong
                  1
                • pok3rplay3r

                  Crawl rate dropped to zero

                  Hello, I recently moved my site in godaddy from cpanel to managed wordpress. I bought this transfer directly from GoDaddy customer service. in this process they accidentally changed my domain from www to non www. I changed it back after the migration, but as a result of this sites craw rate from search console fell to zero and has not risen at all since then. In addition to this website does not display any other errors, i can ask google manually fetch my pages and it works as before, only the crawl rates seems to be dropped permanently. GoDaddy customer service also claims that do not see any errors but I think, however, that in some way they caused this during the migration when the url changed since the timing match perfectly.  also when they accidentally removed the www, crawl rate of my sites  non www version got up but fell back to zero when I changed it back to www version. Now the crawl rate of both www and non www version is zero. How do I get it to rise again? Customer service also said that the problem may be related to ftp-data of search console?  But they were not able to help any more than .Would someone from here be able to help me with this in anyway please?

                  Technical SEO | Apr 2, 2016, 8:41 AM | pok3rplay3r
                  0
                • cttgroup

                  Can iFrames count as duplicate content on either page?

                  Hi All Basically what we are wanting to do is insert an iframe with some text on onto a lot of different pages on one website. Does google crawl the content that is in an iFrame? Thanks

                  Technical SEO | Aug 1, 2013, 12:46 PM | cttgroup
                  0
                • TruvoDirectories

                  Can too many pages hurt crawling and ranking?

                  Hi, I work for local yellow pages in Belgium, over the last months we introduced a succesfull technique to boost SEO traffic: we have created over 150k of new pages, all targeting specific keywords and all containing unique content, a site architecture to enable google to find these pages through crawling, xml sitemaps, .... All signs (traffic, indexation of xml sitemaps, rankings, ...) are positive. So far so good. We are able to quickly build more unique pages, and I wonder how google will react to this type of "large scale operation": can it hurt crawling and ranking if google notices big volumes of content (unique content)? Please advice

                  Technical SEO | Jan 7, 2013, 4:16 PM | TruvoDirectories
                  0
                • ozererim

                  How do I get out of google bomb?

                  Hi all, I have a website named bijouxroom.com; and I was in the 7th page for the search term takı in google; and 2nd page for online takı. Now, I see that in one day my results seem to be on the 13th and 10th page in google respectively. I made too much anchor text for takı and online takı. What shall I do to gain my positions back? Thanks in advance. Regards,

                  Technical SEO | Dec 13, 2012, 5:16 AM | ozererim
                  0
                • joechicago

                  MozBar picking up iFrame source as URL

                  Running a WordPress site with a custom theme. Using a standard wp_head or wp_footer hook to insert the standard code for a Facebook Like, Twitter count / Google Plus count into the site - basically that hook just places the code, programmatically, into the HEAD (where applicable) or right before the BODY closes. For some reason, MozBar is picking up the URL of the iFrame that gets inserted with this code as the URL of the site. I don't have it live right now due to the issues, but I can turn it "on" for anyone who wants a look. Anyone else have this issue? I'm using the code directly from developers.facebook.com for the Like box, and the Google Plus button, Twitter too. Nothing fancy here.

                  Technical SEO | Jun 5, 2012, 8:25 PM | joechicago
                  0
                • dignan99

                  How do I get rid of rogue listings?

                  Unfortunately, Google has taken bits and pieces of my business and combined it with non-existent businesses and other rogue information.  So now my business has 3 locations. One proper listing that I created and manage. One that uses my website address but nothing else is correct in the listing. One that contains my name(incorrectly), but the address and everything else about it is incorrect. I have reported these places many times but they continue to hang around and I am lost/confused on what to do next. Please advise.

                  Technical SEO | Mar 14, 2012, 5:19 PM | dignan99
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.