Best way to host video?

[Maximise]

Hi,

We are planning to host videos on our site for the first time.  It looks like YouTube is a bit too over focused on ads these days for commercial use, can anyone recommend any better video hosting services?

I also realize that hosting somewhere like YouTube has little SEO benefit, am I better off hosting them on our site if possible?

Please share your experiences with the various services and methods of hosting.

Thanks

[RobertFisher]

We use Vimeo for many of our clients with local business due to the ads that follow on YouTube. To our local business clients, when they have a video piece on the site and it ends and the option is there to pick a video from their competitor......well, it is not a good option usually. 
If we are not as concerned with the ads that trail using the YouTube feed, we will go ahead with the it but let the client make the choice.

Hope this helps.

[flowsimple]

Both Vimeo and Viddler are good options. Each have pro/cons depending on your needs. Most times I lean towards Vimeo, I think their user experience is easier and their organization of content is nicer.

[Pablotavano]

Another vote for Vimeo, its fast to load videos and really easy to use.

[EugeneF]

If you use Vimeo, you may still want to put videos on Youtube.  This will get you increased exposure through Youtube when viewers look at competitors videos.

[EugeneF]

I am looking for this solution as well.   Looking at Wistia right now.  Not sure how it compares to the other options.

[EugeneF]

I was looking at a youtube account.  When video is embedded, options exist to not show display related video options at the end of the video.   This seems to imply that you can have youtube videos on a website without ads.   Am I seeing something wrong?

[PhilNottingham]

Vimeo offer a great service, but be aware that the original focus of vimeo was a creative content, rather than a commercial service and so they don't allow you to upload anything blatantly commercial or marketing focussed unless you pay for the pro package, which is a relatively inexpensive $199 per year. If you have something nicely designed and artistic though (even if it is a bit commercial in nature), you may get away with it.

I wouldn't be so down on YouTube because of the ads. Its very easy to embed YouTube videos on your site, the content is mobile friendly and you can choose whether or not to allow adverts on any of your videos. Plus, YouTube gets indexed very quickly and you can optimise your content for search within the platform to achieve greater overall exposure. YouTube also has very smart variable bit-rate progressive encoding, so the service is excellent if you have very high-definition content but want people to be able to watch it without spending any time buffering on low bandwidth connections. The main downside to YouTube is it's security and that ads for other videos will come up in the embedded player on your site after your video has finished playing.

If you want to maintain a fully branded and corporate feel or secure you video from privacy, services like Wistia, Brightcove and Vzaar are all very good and simple to use, though will charge you for hosting based on bandwidth use. Wistia is particularly good because it submits sitemaps on your behalf which can aid you in getting blended results for your videos.

Alternatively, if you have the time and resources, then you could build your own HTML5 player and host the content on your own servers or through a cloud system like Amazon Web Services. There are some plugins and free apps which claim to assist with this, but i haven't tried any of them out.

The question which will ultimately define the answer to your initial query is "What am I trying to achieve with this video?" If you just want pure exposure, then i would host it on YouTube, embed the content on your site, submit a sitemap and optimise both the YouTube page and the page on your site for the same target keyword. If you want something to simply enrich your own website, but lock down the content to ensure any video views happen on your own site (which is what you want to do if your focus is link-building and referrals) then i would pay out the money for a service like Brightcove or Wistia.

[Maximise]

I think that means that it won't recommend other videos after your video has finished playing. You will probably still have all the ads popping up during the video though which is not ideal.

[PhilNottingham]

No, it's actually the other way around. Check out http://www.youtube.com/distilledseo to see what i've done with Distilled's channel.

If you go into your YouTube account settings page http://www.youtube.com/account_manage then scroll down, there is an option to "allow adverts" or "do not allow adverts". choosing the second option will prevent pop-ups and other adsThe pop-ups are essentially PPC ads and only appear for accounts which have high enough views to be offered monetization. YouTube default settings do not have pop-up ads, you have to explicitly allow them.

[Maximise]

Great, thanks Phil

[RobertFisher]

Phil,

This is one of the most concise, well written docs on video streaming and the Internet I have seen. Frankly, I am sending it to several of my staff and I will re-read it several times as well. On the ads, the problem is not that they are there - it is that many clients freak out when they see a competitor show up at the end when they have placed the YouTube feed on their site to run their commercial. Frankly, If not for that, we would do more with it and some clients when informed ahead of time have no problem.

Thanks for a well written answer that went above and beyond.

Robert

[PhilNottingham]

Thanks Robert, Glad you found it useful!

If you want a bit more detail on some video stuff, I have written a couple of longer posts around the topic:

http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/creating-awesome-videos-for-seo/

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-stuff-done-by-video

and Dave Sottimano put together a good guide for YouTube optimisation earlier in the year:

http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/youtube-seo/

Hopefully they might help your endeavours too.

[KeriMorgret]

Thanks for the great answer Phil! It'll serve as a great reference answer. We've had several questions come through along these lines over the past few months.

[PhilNottingham]

No problem Keri!

[xoffie]

Interesting, any update for June 2012? Just about to do this.

[PhilNottingham]

Update from April 2012 -but the content in this post stands http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo

[Njnbiure45r4]

I think meaning that it may not endorse different films after your video has completed playing. You will possibly nevertheless have all the ads shooting up during the video though which is not ideal. like you can see here on the amazon gift card website.