Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. How can I make sure Google is crawling a link from an iframe (video)?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How can I make sure Google is crawling a link from an iframe (video)?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    12
    3016
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • zpm2014
      zpm2014 Subscriber last edited by

      Do they crawl backlinks from an iframe example from a Youtube video embedded in a blog post? TIA!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • PhilNottingham
        PhilNottingham @zpm2014 last edited by

        That test in no-way proves that the link passed PageRank.

        I'm not sure about an href within an iframe, but equally I don't see any reason why you would do that?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • zpm2014
          zpm2014 Subscriber @PhilNottingham last edited by

          So this test is not true:

          https://www.seroundtable.com/google-iframe-link-14558.html

          What if there's an a href tag (can be seen through "inspect element") within the iframe embedded in a webpage?

          PhilNottingham 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • PhilNottingham
            PhilNottingham @zpm2014 last edited by

            Nope, they can't. Those links are within the iframe.

            If you're trying to get link equity from embedded video, it'll need to be with crediting text links or images outside of the actual player, as overlays are done with JavaScript, which doesn't pass PageRank by all accounts.

            zpm2014 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • zpm2014
              zpm2014 Subscriber @PhilNottingham last edited by

              We created videos that will be embedded to other sites and we have to take advantage of the backlinks.

              Regarding Youtube videos, it was just another question if Google can crawl backlinks (the hyperlinked Youtube logo within a video embedded to an external site or webpage) of a Youtube page.

              PhilNottingham 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • PhilNottingham
                PhilNottingham @zpm2014 last edited by

                Not quite sure I understand... Are you trying to build links to the YouTube video on youtube.com? if so, an embed through an iframe does sort of count as a "link" to the video (i.e. it provides ranking equity), but only in the unique case of YouTube videos.

                Or are you wondering if links in the descriptions/overlays will pass PageRank?

                zpm2014 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • zpm2014
                  zpm2014 Subscriber @RyanPurkey last edited by

                  This is for link building, Ryan. Do you think Google will still follow the links from an iframe?

                  PhilNottingham 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • RyanPurkey
                    RyanPurkey @PhilNottingham last edited by

                    Ah, ya, since OP is asking about these videos after they're embedded in other sites maybe he means will this be like link building?  Or maybe he's asking about view lift and popularity of the original video?  OP, I think you'll need to clarify some to get a more precise answer.

                    zpm2014 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • PhilNottingham
                      PhilNottingham @RyanPurkey last edited by

                      I wrote that post, and it's now nearly three years out of date.

                      They have got better at crawling iframes since then, and now you can get a video indexed if it's embedded in an iframe.

                      However, I don't think this relates to the question specifically?

                      RyanPurkey 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • PhilNottingham
                        PhilNottingham last edited by

                        Google see iframes as basically "a window into other sites". As such, no, they don't crawl links in this way - however, they will likely then crawl the page which the iframe references, and thereby pick up any backlinks there.

                        I'm not quite sure how this might related to an embedded YouTube video, but YouTube videos are indexed instantly anyway once they're published because Google don't need to crawl YouTube (they have access to the database)

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • zpm2014
                          zpm2014 Subscriber @RyanPurkey last edited by

                          Thanks Ryan! These videos will be embedded in other websites.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • RyanPurkey
                            RyanPurkey last edited by

                            This post is fairly extensive in regards to your question and should give you ideas even beyond what you're asking here,  http://outdoorsrank.com/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo but if you're looking for the highlight, this is still pretty applicable advice today:

                            Embed the content with HTML5 and JavaScript or Flash, but not an iframe

                            Unfortunately, Google are not very good at crawling iframes at the moment; so if you want videos to be indexed, you need to make sure you’re embedding content in an HTML5 player with Flash fallback, or a pure Flash player.

                            If the video is being embedded on your own site you can also create a transcription for it on the same page and then place the links in according spots.  Cheers!

                            zpm2014 PhilNottingham 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              Last post

                            Browse Questions

                            Explore more categories

                            • Moz Tools

                              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                            • SEO Tactics

                              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                            • Community

                              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                            • Digital Marketing

                              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                            • Research & Trends

                              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                            • Support

                              Connect on product support and feature requests.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • SDCMarketing

                              Change Google's version of Canonical link

                              Hi My website has millions of URLs and some of the URLs have duplicate versions. We did not set canonical all these years. Now we wanted to implement it  and fix all the technical SEO issues. I wanted to consolidate and redirect all the variations of a URL to the highest pageview version and use that as the canonical because all of these variations have the same content. While doing this, I found in Google search console that Google has already selected another variation of URL as canonical and not the highest pageview version. My questions: I have millions of URLs for which I have to do 301 and set canonical. How can I find all the canonical URLs that Google has autoselected? Search Console has a daily quota of 100 or something. Is it possible to override Google's version of Canonical? Meaning, if I set a variation as Canonical and it is different than what Google has already selected, will it change overtime in Search Console? Should I just do a 301 to highest pageview variation of the URL and not set canonicals at all? This way the canonical that Google auto selected might get redirected to the highest pageview variation of the URL. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SDCMarketing
                              0
                            • vtmoz

                              Top hierarchy pages vs footer links vs header links

                              Hi All, We want to change some of the linking structure on our website. I think we are repeating some non-important pages at footer menu. So I want to move them as second hierarchy level pages and bring some important pages at footer menu. But I have confusion which pages will get more influence: Top menu or bottom menu or normal pages? What is the best place to link non-important pages; so the link juice will not get diluted by passing through these. And what is the right place for "keyword-pages" which must influence our rankings for such keywords? Again one thing to notice here is we cannot highlight pages which are created in keyword perspective in top menu. Thanks

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                              0
                            • fablau

                              Using "nofollow" internally can help with crawl budget?

                              Hello everyone. I was reading this article on semrush.com, published the last year, and I'd like to know your thoughts about it: https://www.semrush.com/blog/does-google-crawl-relnofollow-at-all/ Is that really the case? I thought that Google crawls and "follows" nofollowed tagged links even though doesn't pass any PR to the destination link. If instead Google really doesn't crawl internal links tagged as "nofollow", can that really help with crawl budget?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
                              0
                            • A Former User

                              Does google credit links from iFrames or created by Javascript, if so, is one more powerful than the other?

                              Consider this example, because I want to be clear about what I mean.  You have two websites.  Lets all them www.a.com and www.b.com. On www.a.com/some/page, there is an iframe something like this:
                              <iframe src="www.b.com/some/special/path"></iframe>
                              Then content of this iframe is a bunch of pictures, text and numbers, as well as a group of links, linking each picture to www.b.com for example the links might be:
                              www.b.com/content/1
                              www.b.com/content/2
                              www.b.com/content/3 Questions: When google crawls **www.a.com/some/page, **does it pass link juice to www.b.com/content/*? Does google instead consider these to be internal links within b.com itself.  because links to www.b.com/content/ ** are actually from b.com itself, since the domain of the iframe is actually: www.b.com/some/special/path 3) Is there any amount of link juice passed from www.a.com/some/page to* www.b.com/some/special/path **because this is the src= element of an iframe that a.com is hosting? Consider an alternative setup.  Where instead of using an iframe the contents of the above described iFrame is actually added the the page dynamically using javascript, and a call to an API endpoint at b.com.  Resulting in these links being added directly to the body of a.com without being wrapped in an iframe element. Questions:
                              4) Do these links that were created after page load still get crawled and credited by google? (i have heard in the past that google was going to start crawling javascript, i just don't know if this is known for a fact yet).
                              5) Do links created on the client side hold the same weight as a link that was served directly via the backend html generation? If both the links within the iframe and the links within the javascript embed method pass link juice.  Is one preferred over the other? is one known to be more effective than the other? Thanks!

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A Former User
                              0
                            • RosemaryB

                              My client wants to apply schematic markup to their iframe youtube video. Is this possible?

                              I have a client that wants to apply video object schema to their iframe youtube video. Here is the source code: <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/clientvideo" width="272" height="202" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Is it possible to apply schema markup to this kind of iframe source code?   Our development team was having a hard time with it. Thanks!

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
                              0
                            • brad-causes

                              Do search engines crawl links on 404 pages?

                              I'm currently in the process of redesigning my site's 404 page. I know there's all sorts of best practices from UX standpoint but what about search engines? Since these pages are roadblocks in the crawl process, I was wondering if there's a way to help the search engine continue its crawl. Does putting links to "recent posts" or something along those lines allow the bot to continue on its way or does the crawl stop at that point because the 404 HTTP status code is thrown in the header response?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brad-causes
                              0
                            • JohnPeters

                              "Jump to" Links in Google, how do you get them?

                              I have just seen yoast.com results in Google and noticed that nearly all the indexed pages show a "Jump to" link So instead of showing the full URL under the title tag, it shows these type of links yoast.com › SEO
                              yoast.com › Social Media
                              yoast.com › Analytics With the SEO, Social Media and Analytics all being clickable. How has he achieved this? And is it something to try and incorporate in my sites?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters
                              0
                            • AWCthreads

                              Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?

                              Does Google interpret Affiliate links as paid links? If so, can Affiliate links harm your rank if they are not properly tagged with a no-follow? Thanks.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            • Digital Marketers
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy