Embedding videos in websites has become a common practice since connection speeds have become really fast. However, embedding a video on a page is known for slowing the speed of a page and affecting the core web vitals ranking of the site. Every good developer knows how to use lazy load techniques to be able to embed videos without affecting the performance of the website. However, this can potentially avoid those videos from ranking on the search results on Google Video Search.
Embedding Videos in Websites : What google has to say?
Google expert, John Muller, offered a solution that does not seem to be clear enough. When asked what was better to do, having outstanding core web vital numbers, or ranking your page on the search results. He indicated that this is a sore point. The video team at Google told him, that using lazy loading techniques might cause issues with the search results. On the other hand, the team in charge of core web vitals said to him that he should make things as fast as possible. So… it looks like it’s hard to make a compromise.
Schemas and sitemaps: a middle-ground solution.
Muller recommended the use of video sitemaps and structured data and schemas to tell Google about the presence of a video on the page. Using structured data, it is possible to inform Google about the presence of a video and use lazy loading techniques to avoid having an impact on Core Web Vitals. Another alternative is the use of sitemaps. In that way, you can inform Google that a relevant video is present on the page.
He also said that he expects that over time, YouTube embedding will improve in will impact the Core Web Vitals way less, making the embedding of videos a good alternative.
Conclusion
It is a complex issue we are facing now. On one side, having an embedded video can be something that most of your visitors will prefer. Today people prefer to see videos than read long articles. But this comes at the expense of a possible penalty on ranking. If you have a hard time ranking up, then how will people find you. To make matters more ironic, if they don’t find you, how they can see your video?
So, until YouTube embedding integrates better, your best bet is to make use of the provided solutions by John Muller. The use of structured data is important to indicate to the crawlers there is a video on the page and that it should be indexed by the video search results. If structured data is not an option, you can also use a Video Sitemap, which is used to tell crawlers about the presence of a video and its relevancy to the content.
Is it worth it to go through all of this hassle? The answer is a definite yes. Remember that content is king, and you have to do everything in your hands to give the visitor what he or she is looking for.
