Addin from youtube....unprofessional????

[tony09uk]

Just a quick question....who thinks thinks seeing a youtube video on a website looks unprofessional??????

AND......if you know.....
If I add video direct to my own site does it slow my site down?
Ultimatly, I want to add a memebers area...so obviously the member only videos cant be on you tube. is there anyway to have someone else host them and them not be avaliable to the general public?

[VodaHost]

No, i think it looks great....we get tons of requests asking us how we do it. Plus its excellent for viral marketing and seo

[tony09uk]

Thanks for that reply...............what does anyone else think please????????

[DarrenC]

Yes i think YouTube is great. I wish I had a reason to use it. A lot of sites I visit have YouTube vids embedded in them, I don't think any less of them.

[Vasili]

I take the different side of the issue, and prefer not to have YouTube videos run on my websites for the following reasons:

1. I prefer to have my own watermark/logo on all media associated with my website;

2. Now that Google has relaxed the Rules to allow tagging media (optimizing), it is only possible to do so if the media file is originally yours, so you can Title it, tag it, and embed code into it to register with the proper and effective META values so desperatly sought for solid SEO maintenence and website management;

3. YouTube player formats are not variable, whereas original video files can be played through any number of players and formatted utilities you so choose (especially important to maintain the clean 'look-and-feel' of the design continuity of your website);

4. YouTube videos are not 'editable' once brought over to your site, forcing you to once again re-edit from the original video file and re-submit to YouTube should you wish to update, change, or re-focus the video itself. This forces you to basically 'start from scratch' in building any SE/META values that may have been earned for the previous version attributed by YouTube to the older file. This is important - this tranferrance of minimal SE values because as described above, the SE values are not there to begin with in contrast to properly formatting your own video file to new SE Rules and allowances.

Sure, some may argue that using YouTube video is 'User Acceptable' and that the ease of creating them justifies the practice, and for the most part that part of the argument is true: creating, formatting, optimizing, and functioning a video on your own is more work indeed.
The additional values from using a YouTube video that carries some SE value is also another consideration, even though it may not be a SE-rich as could be.
And that last technical aspect might be that using a YouTube video creates friendly back-links and the beginnings of validated Relevance for your website .... this may be true, but agian, it is my professional opinion that this valuation is not as significant as it was only 2 years ago: it is far more important to create not only validated Relevance across the web balancing link strategies, quotes, blog posts, etc. with solid and true SEO techniques into every element used to create your website, which is why Google was the first to relax/change the Rules with regard to optimizing media in the first place!

Using video on your websites is a Good Thing all the way around, but choose the format that produces not only the effects you want but the results you deserve!


Now ... if you really want to spin your mind, reflecting upon the few mentions I've made above, try to reconcile my first preference to convert my video to Flash instead! It is a real mind-bender for those unfamiliar with SEO and the technical aspects, but I have found it incredibly unique in the results it achieves: 1. It loads and plays much faster than other file types, thus a richer visitor experience; 2. It proves harder to copy down (or 'bootleg') from your site; 3. It uses much less server resources, which may be a significant factor for site that are media-rich or certain CMS foundations that must interface using a specific tight script. Told you there were reasons!

[tony09uk]

thanks guys, im still 50/50 as to what to do though :s (think if everthing was in place today it would be youtube, but still have a lot to do....so maybe I could end up with my own water marked videos

[tony09uk]

Vasili....is it possible to add a watermark to my SWF file by just adding some HTML??? (if so where can I find the code) or do I need to run it through a video editing suite? (if so which one will do?)

[Vasili]

No ... you will need to create that watermark as an additional Flash element/layer (not done coding HTML), using any of the "Lite" Flash editors available on the Net.

[Vasili]

You can select from any of these titles > http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=...8c5ebfdaf3b352