Page load increases with Video File - SEO Effects

[SEO-Team]

We're trying to use a flash video as a product image, so the size increase will be significant. We're talking somewhere around 1.5 - 2mb on a page that is about 400kb before the video. So the increase is significant. There is SEO concern with pages peed and thinking perhaps having the flash video inside an iframe might overcome the speed issues.

We're trying to provide a better experience with the video, but the increase in page size, and therefore speed, will be significant. The rest of the page will load, including a fallback static image, so we're really trying to understand how to mitigate the page load speed impact of the video. Any Thoughts?

[AdamThompson]

Just answered a nearly identical question the other day that you may find useful: http://www.seomoz.org/q/google-s-algorithm-on-file-size-use-iframe-or-not

[SEO-Team]

Our concerns are with significant page size increase. Are you still saying not to be concerned with the algorithm? If so, would we loose placement because our competitors have a quicker page speed?

[AdamThompson]

I do not think you will experience any drop in rankings due to embedding a flash video on your webpage. I certainly have not seen any ranking drops on pages with embedded videos. Remember, page speed is a very small signal in Google's ranking algorithm and Google encourages the use of web videos (Video sitemaps, etc.).

[SEO-Team]

Thanks Adam for all your comments. I agree Google encourages the use of video and my concern is the load time of moving from 2 seconds to 11 seconds. This will be a good test!