Video embedding: keep your client happy

3 replies
So most people who are posting on YouTube for clients probably are aware of the setting to allow a video to be embedded on websites or not. I don't think that many people give much thought to this, so wanted to paint a scenario.

You have signed up a client, you are using video as part of your SEO or marketing strategy. For most businesses, their brand is going to be important to them. So what happens after you create your nice video, post it to YouTube and 2 weeks later you get a call from your client asking why the video is being displayed on ___ site? (*Use your imagination about what could make them upset.) The reason is simple, someone probably scraped your page, or at the very least embedded your video to drive traffic to their site.

For most of my clients I automatically prevent embedding if I host with Youtube. I know I am controlling where my video will show up (Youtube and search results). Otherwise who knows where it will go. For some clients, where I think the exposure using YouTube that gets essentially syndicated is worth the risk that it goes up in places that may not be so desirable, I will discuss the pros and cons of allowing embedding so that they are aware of the risk/reward.

I find that bringing this up early in the project, when appropriate, has been a good way to prevent possible problems that could affect your business relationship.

Bonus note: Each video hosting company is different, but many don't even give you the option of not embedding, in which case I do not bother to upload if I want to protect the content.
#client #embedding #happy #securing video #video #youtube
  • Profile picture of the author warriortx
    A very good way of presenting this issue. Too often content intended for one site gets ripped off.

    Another tool at your disposal is to create a clickable space on the video the size of the entire video, and have the hover comment display some copyright blurb and/or have it link to your original site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Scott Patterson
      i always watermark my website name on the video, which will always advertise your clients business, no matter who uses it
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      • Profile picture of the author localvseo
        I also brand my videos in various ways. However, you still may run into issues of where it shows up on a page. From a user standpoint, a lot of viewers probably don't realize that embedded content on a site that was created from scraping is not the original source. So your video could be framed with competitors or unrelated content that could be objectionable. Again, comes down to trade off between control of where it is displayed vs. exposure.
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