How will an embedded YouTube video affect the page load time?

The main concern of most business website owners and SEOs only care about performance and page speed and as you know nowadays most users browse on mobile phones and speed has been taken seriously as it is often shown even in mobile rankings. Fast pages are the most essential need for users in this busy world thus website developers need to design the website in terms of higher speed optimization, as most of the websites are being ranked in terms of speed.

Researchers often say that it is possible that YouTube embeds can slow down the site loading and reduce the page speed score given by search engines called Search Engine Optimization(SPO). But the search engine, for example, Google doesn’t generally make exceptions for YouTube or other embeds that they run versus competitors. They often say that YouTube-embedded videos shouldn’t be slowing down things too but as its players are well optimized however the only reason for this slowdown is the YouTube-embedded videos.

YouTube embedded videos

When YouTube sometimes malfunctions, we are aware of the frustrating sensation we experience. Whenever you visit a company’s website, you expect it to be optimized as it should format properly, load quickly, and provide you with the information you need. You feel that a certain business is reliable and professional enough after its website functions properly. When it doesn’t work properly, we doubt the company’s credibility.

Incorporation of the videos into legal marketing strategy is considered a risk for many business website owners as they are afraid of the fact that it will impact the load time of their website. Having concerns about the time of page loading is justified as around half of the users expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.

According to the facts, every year 1.6 billion in revenue loss occurs to the delay in page loading or turnaround time. For e-commerce companies, the store must load in 2 seconds, otherwise, the visitor loses interest in the page. Speed relies on several factors which include what certain YouTube channels are using to embed their videos, how many other elements you have on a page, the optimization of YouTube as a whole, as well as several other factors. If these are optimized properly, the video should not influence the page loading speed.

Causes of slow down Youtube embedded videos

Here are some of the major causes and measures which you can use to make sure that videos don’t slow down your page loading time and speed is maintained.

Whenever a video is embedded on a website, it adds a piece of code to your page. Search engines and ISPs have to load that snippet every time the code is added. Therefore, it would logically follow that too many code snippets would potentially slow down your load time.

You should run the domain through Google Page Speed Insights before you even begin testing the videos on the site. In this way, you will find out how the loading time of a certain website is compared to others. It will also identify certain areas of improvement, which you can assess later.

Dos and Don’ts for having embedded videos

There are a few do’s and don’ts to consider when embedding video on your website.

• DON’T:
  The first option to host an embedded video without any external video player is the self-host. Although, it weighs down your website and takes longer to load external videos. However, the advantage is that you have full control over the content, you can control the appearance, and you don’t have to worry about ads. It can also be problematic in troubleshooting on your own without the ability to contact a specialist like you could with an external media player. You can’t always guarantee a positive experience here, so we would not like to recommend this option to you.
• DO:
  Most video players stream videos by embedding javascript into the native structure of your site, allowing your website’s native elements including text, images, and navigation menus to fully load before loading the video content. YouTube is designed for streaming video, so its media players are optimized for use on both mobile and desktop. However, the biggest disadvantage of YouTube is it focuses so much on monetization. You should consider that if you are embedding your videos through YouTube, there will be a high risk of an increase in your website page load, as a result, it will weigh down your website with the additional and unnecessary scripts caused by ad-saturated video content. However, if you are interested in looking for an option that is suitable for your budget and is relatively low-cost, then YouTube may be your best bet because it’s free to use.

Using YouTube to Embed Videos

Limit the number of HTTP requests

If you are someone who prefers embedded videos on YouTube and to take them on your website then we would like to suggest you limit the number of HTTP requests that have been made when your browser loads your website. You can embed the video thumbnail rather than using the whole video, because of that the video will be loaded once you click that certain thumbnail and allows you to play that way. But it prevents the browser from having to load the additional code snippets until it’s necessary.

Custom YouTube thumbnails

Another thing you can do when using YouTube-embedded videos is you can create custom thumbnails for all of your videos. In this way, your videos will look more tempting to the audience and will increase the probability that a website visitor will play your video content. You can simply aim for sharp colors, unified color palettes, and engaging content to grab attention. You can also include the topic of the video in thumbnails if you’re creating an educational video.