Replace YouTube embeds with ad-free, branded video in under 30 minutes
YouTube places ads on all embedded videos — including unlisted ones. Since August 2024, ad frequency on embeds has increased. Competitor ads can appear before your product demos, on your homepage, on your landing pages.
The YouTube player includes "Watch on YouTube" links and suggested videos that pull viewers away from your site. The rel=0 parameter only limits suggestions to your own channel since 2018 — it does not disable them.
YouTube provides aggregate view counts but cannot tell you which individual watched what, for how long, or where they dropped off. There is no CRM integration and no way to tie video engagement to leads.
Many offices, hospitals, and government agencies block youtube.com at the firewall. Embedded videos show a broken gray box. Videos served from your own domain are not affected by these blocks.
Before: competitor ads playing before your content on your own site. After: a clean, ad-free player with no third-party branding.
Before: youtube.com branding, red play button, suggested videos. After: videos served from your custom domain with a white-label player that matches your brand.
Before: a single YouTube embed adds 1.3-2.6 MB of page weight and 20+ HTTP requests. After: a lightweight HLS player that does not hurt Core Web Vitals.
Before: broken embeds behind corporate firewalls. After: videos served from your domain that are never blocked by YouTube filters.
Go to YouTube Studio, navigate to Content, select the videos you want to move, and use the download option to get your original source files. You can also use Google Takeout to export your entire YouTube library at once.
Sign up for a free 14-day trial. Set up your organization, connect your custom domain, and configure your player branding.
Upload your downloaded files via drag-and-drop, or import directly from Google Drive if that is where your source files live. Resumable uploads handle large files without issues.
Swap YouTube iframe embeds for host.video embed codes. Search your site for "youtube.com/embed" or "youtu.be" and replace each instance. Most CMS platforms make this a straightforward find-and-replace.
Check playback on your key pages. Confirm the player renders correctly, transcriptions are generated, and your custom domain is serving the content. You can keep your YouTube channel active for discoverability while serving embeds from host.video.
You do not need to delete your YouTube videos. Many teams keep their YouTube channel for public discoverability and SEO while serving all website embeds through host.video. This gives you the best of both worlds: YouTube for search traffic and audience building, host.video for branded, ad-free playback on your own properties. Simply replace the YouTube embed codes on your site — your YouTube channel stays untouched.
For a typical site with 10-30 embedded videos, the entire process takes under 30 minutes. Downloading from YouTube is the slowest step. Uploading and swapping embeds is fast.
No. Keep your YouTube channel for public discoverability. Use host.video for all embedded video on your website, landing pages, and help docs where you need a branded, ad-free experience.
YouTube embeds do not pass SEO value to your domain — the watch time and engagement are credited to YouTube. Hosting on your own domain with proper video schema markup can actually improve your on-site SEO.