Video SEO: Videos in Multiple Sources

[Tatango]

Frist time question, so excited!

We are hosting videos on Wistia for a new series we're calling Tatango University  - Very similar to Whiteboard Fridays as you can tell - thanks Rand for the idea.

My question, should we also be uploading the videos to YouTube or will this somehow we looked at as duplicate content or video spamming? Also, if we host them on YouTube will they always come up before our videos on our own site, therefore driving all the traffic to YouTube?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Gyorgy]

Distributing your videos through many channels isn't a duplicate issue. My videos were firstly hosted on Vimeo and my website's video sitemap listed those pages. Later I created a YouTube channel and uploaded the same videos. A few weeks later the YouTube pages started taking over the SERP and currently all of my videos appear on YouTube first, then on Vimeo. The higher number of YouTube video views and comments indicate to the search engine that those pages seem to be more popular; therefore, deserve better rankings.

[Tatango]

Thanks Gyorgy for the insight. I guess it then comes down to how valuable it is to have someone watch one of the videos on your site, compared to YouTube, especially if YouTube videos will rank higher.

Why does SEOMOZ not have a YouTube channel for their Whiteboard Friday videos do you think?

[Gyorgy]

Because their videos are very popular and they want to generate link juice for the SEOMoz pages, not YouTube.