Thank you for your reply. Someone mentioned to me that Google looks at video like they look at other content and duplication is not a good idea. They suggested that I change the first few frames and the last few, as this is all Google sees. Is there any truth to this?

Of course, since I get no “juice” from YouTube I should not care. But will they look at the site in general and think there is duplicate content.

(A lot of words to ask “Will it hurt the site’s ranking to have a copy of the video on YouTube and S3”)

Yeah. What Shawn said. 🙂

Ron is correct – having your video on YouTube and using S3 for hosting on your own site will not hurt your SEO juice. The YouTube video might show-up higher in Google SERP than the video on your website because Google’s algorithms are moving and dynamic, there is no definitive answer and if all you care about is SEO value then YouTube gives you none but most people care about a balance of SEO value and views and in that case a dual hosting strategy makes sense.

The JW Player is a really good player that allows you to create Google Video Sitemaps. There is a small one-time license fee for commercial website use but it is well worth it compared to what most people waste on Google Adwords every month with no lasting SEO benefits.

Having your video in both places will not hurt your SEO juice. The more places you have your video, the better.

What do you mean by free “viewers” for your WP site?

OK, maybe two questions. Any recommendations on an easy (read free) viewers for my WP site?

Hey Dan,
Thanks for the comments. Sorry I haven’t been able to reply sooner – as I mentioned above, my twin girls were born the day before this article went live.

The YouTube hosting strategy isn’t one I’d call “different” because it is what most companies default to because they believe it will increase their search engine rankings and drive traffic to their website.

Your tips on adding your website to the description in a manner that will allow it to be a hyperlinked, or clickable link are great for when you are hosting on YouTube but that doesn’t mean that hosting and embedding videos that will appear on your website with YouTube videos is a good idea, because it is not.

Let’s be clear that posting a link on YouTube does not contribute to positive Google SERP. The reason is that YouTube, like many sites (including the links in the comment section of this blog) utilize rel=”nofollow” HTML coding. This “no follow” code tells Google not to give that link SEO credit. Bing and Yahoo respect this coding as well.

So if you host a video on YouTube and then embed it on your website you are hurting your own website SEO potential by not putting a video on your website that Google can credit to your website. It actually is a bit worse than just that – you were concerned that by “competing” with YouTube your website would appear out of (sic) site in Google search but if you post a video on YouTube you are actually contributing to an extra search term in YouTube’s favour, although I would bother yourself about that too much, regardless of the butterfly effect.

By hosting with a service that allows proper Video Sitemap creation you are contributing to your page’s SEO value. You wouldn’t put a photo on a video page and leave its title img20003.jpg and a blank description because you know that if you title the photo and description with similar terms as your content, this is good for Google SEO. So why would you consider embedding a YouTube video there because Google won’t even see it – all they see is something like (non-functioning link on purpose) htttp://youtu.be/M6qUbsLMv… and that doesn’t tell Google what the title, description, and tags of the video are.

Now while I think that all videos that are one yours or your clients’ websites should be professionally hosted with a host that allows video sitemaps, I don’t think it is a bad idea to also put the video on YouTube and add the links back to your website. As you have described, this can lead to some traffic and even sales. YouTube is still the 2nd largest search engine.

But Google is number 1 and getting people on your website should be the ultimate goal.

And if you are concerned about “competing” with the power of YouTube – don’t. I have been able to get videos that I created and hosted on Wistia to appear in Google SERPs above the same video that my client put on their YouTube page. The nice part about this is that both results appeared with video thumbnails and this shut-out competing videos from page 1 results. My client was obviously happy with this result in that I was able to beat YouTube, which means they can keep one step ahead of their competitors.

You’re welcome Phil. Happy to help and glad I was able to suggest a few easy steps for you to refine your SEO strategy. Often it isn’t about making massive changes but doing a few things well.

Sorry I haven’t been able to be active in this discussion sooner. My twin girls were born the day before this post was published so, understandably, I’ve had some demands on my time and those little demands are sooooo cute.