Can you get rich snippets for Youtube hosted videos?

[TMI.com]

My website has several videos, mostly product reviews and tutorials. I'd like for these videos to show in the SERPs with rich snippets, but I am hosting them through Youtube. What is your experience with Youtube hosted videos? Do they generate rich snippets? Or will Google always rank the Youtube video over your web page?

[evolvingSEO]

You can add markup to videos in your website even hosted on YouTube. Here are a few resources;

• http://www.sistrix.com/video-rich-snippets/
• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/time-come-actually-create-video-rich-snippet/90953/
• http://www.branded3.com/blogs/how-to-add-rich-snippets-for-video-seo/

The problem as you mentioned, is the fact YouTube will most likely outrank you depending on the specifics of the query. You may try making the videos "unlisted" (that is people can only find the YouTube URL with a direct link) but still embed. I don't have direct experience with this though.

Ultimately, to rank a video on your site with rich snippets etc you may want to self host with a platform like Wistia.

Also, whichever platform you use, don't forget to create a video sitemap. This is a great resource on Distilled about video sitemaps: https://www.distilled.net/blog/video/creating-video-sitemaps-for-each-video-hosting-platform/

[PhilNottingham]

Just on the "unlisted" question - the problem with doing this is that you then lose almost all of the value of having the videos on YouTube in the first place, yet still have to deal with sub-optimal analytics. Similarly, you can use the YouTube API with a third party player, but the only value you then get from YouTube is free hosting (but with sub-par tracking).

[evolvingSEO]

Good point - thanks Phil!

[TMI.com]

Thanks for the response, Dan! You reaffirmed what I was thinking. Even if we get the proper rich snippets markup implemented it will be hard to rank above Youtube.

Phil, do you have any other reasons why it "strategically makes little sense"?

[PhilNottingham]

Sure! Have read of this one http://moz.com/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy