Embedding videos on your pages can slow the page down and cause your Core Web Vitals scores not to perform well. But using lazy loading methods or other tricks to get the videos to score well with Core Web Vitals can cause the videos to not be ranked in Google Video search. John Mueller of Google discussed these pros and cons and some solutions in this past Friday's SEO hangout at the 5:11 mark into the video.
In short, an SEO said she manages a blog and to improve the Core Web Vitals, she tried to implement the video using a lazy loading method within a facade. The solution they implemented was to use the facade and then the iframe would dynamically be injected when the user clicks the play button on the video. That did improve the Core Web Vitals metrics but it led to Google removing the videos from Google Video search. She said "so if I search for the page and I go to video search it doesn't appear there." She asked John Mueller what can be done to ensure Google finds the video?
The short answer John gave was that this is an issue; the debate between having awesome Core Web Vitals scores and then making sure your videos rank. John said "I have had feedback from the video search team telling us like we shouldn't tell people to do this because it causes problems like that." Problems where Google won't index and rank the video. John added "I'm kind of torn like if the video team tells me like you should put it directly and the other team says like you should make things fast, then like hard to find the middle ground."
John did recommend that you use structured data and video sitemaps to communicate to Google that the videos are on the page. He said "Essentially the the best approaches there are at least to make sure that with structured data we can tell that there's still a video there. So I believe there's a kind of structured data for specifically for videos that you can add. Video sitemap is essentially very similar in that regard, in that you're telling us on this page there's a video that is relevant. So those are kind of the the two approaches there."
He did add that he suspects "over time the the YouTube embed will get better and faster and it'll be less of an issue." So you won't have to do these work arounds...
But for now, if you want super Core Web Vitals scores and you want to maximize your video exposure by placing the embeds at the top of the page, then you need to have the video visible to Google some how.
Here is the video embedded here (which is slowing down this page) so you can listen to it:
Here is the transcript:
QUESTION:
I have a question about JavaScript SEO and getting JavaScript content indexed. So for core web vitals, so I work on a blog website first of all and for core web vitals, we so we have a feature where we put a YouTube video at the top so that became the LCP element, so that was heavier than what we just had like a regular image. So we're trying a method where we're dynamically injecting it where I saw a web dev article that suggested lazy loading with a facade. So since it's not below the fold content, we don't lazy load it but we're using a facade and then the iframe is dynamically injected when the user clicks the play button. I’m realizing now that the articles are not being indexed with the video content on the page essentially. So if I search for the page and I go to video search it doesn't appear there. I’m wondering what the best way to get that content indexed with the page is, I mean I know I can do things like submit a video sitemap and stuff but for it to be for basically for the video to be seen as like related to the web page, the the way that it was indexed before. So is something like no script or structured data the way to go, is is there any sort of best practice for this?
ANSWER:
Depending on the the way that you set up the kind of the facade that you mentioned there where you you click on an image essentially or a div or something and then it loads the the video in the background, it can definitely be the case that we don't automatically pick it up as a video when we view the page. And I have had feedback from the video search team telling us like we shouldn't tell people to do this because it causes problems like that. Essentially the the best approaches there are at least to make sure that with structured data we can tell that there's still a video there. So I believe there's a kind of structured data for specifically for videos that you can add. Video sitemap is essentially very similar in that regard, in that you're telling us on this page there's a video that is relevant. So those are kind of the the two approaches there. I suspect over time the the YouTube embed will get better and faster and it'll be less of an issue where you have to kind of do these tricks. But I think for the moment it can still make sense and it can still have a big effect on on the core web vitals of a page. So from that point of view, I’m kind of torn like if the video team tells me like you should put it directly and the other team says like you should make things fast, then like hard to find the middle ground. But I think at least making sure that that we can recognize the video is there that's really important.
Forum discussion at YouTube Community.
