Are YouTube Videos Slowing Down Your Website?

While slow loading pages might have no impact on your business’s mobile rankings, it definitely has an impact on how your customers interact with your website. In most cases, a slow loading page ends up turning away potential customers.

While answering a question during a Google Webmaster Central office hours hangout as to whether YouTube embeds can slow a site’s loading time and reduce its Google speed score, Google’s John Mueller said that it might. Google doesn’t make exceptions for YouTube, AdSense or other embeds that they run versus competitors or third-party companies, Mueller added. But he said YouTube shouldn’t be slowing things down too much since YouTube players are well optimized.

Are YouTube Videos Slowing Down Your Website?

Back in June 2016, Google introduced a Test My Site with Google free tool to check website performance. The tool is pretty easy to use. You just need to type in your website address and you will receive a score. You can also download a complete report that suggests ways you can improve your site’s performance.

Google followed up on their Test My Site with Google tool with the Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP project to make mobile pages much faster.

In a nutshell, AMP is a stripped-down form of HTML that allows pages to be designed for fast loading. The concept is already being used by leading publishers around the world, including CNN, Forbes, NFL, The Financial Times, CBS News and The New York Times, among many others.

YouTube Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Are YouTube Videos Slowing Down Your Website?" was first published on Small Business Trends