Jan 11
20

Choose your YouTube video starting point

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I was looking to start a YouTube video at a certain point and thought i’d share this with you for those in search of the answer.
In order to start a YouTube video at a certain point you would add this to the video URL:

#t=2m20s

Where “2m” indicates 2 minutes and the “20s” indicates 20 seconds. ….if you like a little bit of ‘caterpillar’ (you will see what I mean) then check this video out below with the video to begin playing at 2:20 into it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg#t=2m20s

However this method only works for directly linking to YouTube videos.

If you want to start an embeded YouTube video at a certain point?  That can also be done:

First, extract the video embed code after specifying your desired settings which is easy as YouTube provides these tools for you.

It will look something like this:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dMH0bHeiRNg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dMH0bHeiRNg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

You then need to add the command &start=140 (for this example we are using 140 seconds, which is the same as 2 minutes, 20 seconds) to the end of both URLs in the embed code.  It will look like this:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dMH0bHeiRNg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&start=140"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dMH0bHeiRNg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&start=140" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Don’t believe me?  Just click the embeded video below and see for yourself.

Please enjoy and look forward to any comments or other tips.

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Posted in SEO by Zak Jacobs 4 Comments

4 Responses to "Choose your YouTube video starting point"

  • Ben Dickson says:
    January 20, 2011 at 4:06 pm
    Reply

    This is excellent, id didnt even realise you could change the start point, this will be really helpful going forward although i will probably mess the code part up
    Thanks

  • John F Blake says:
    January 21, 2011 at 11:27 pm
    Reply

    Hi Zak good to meet you at the event last night, will follow up on the seo strategy with you, thanks for the tips…and tips on this youtube article, we will have to use it on our marketing vids, thanks John

  • Coln Burn says:
    February 7, 2011 at 3:29 pm
    Reply

    This is helpful, i needed to do this recently and couldnt work it out or find the info on youtube, many thanks

  • Simon Bale says:
    February 24, 2011 at 11:15 am
    Reply

    I can believe ive been trying to do this for ages then saw this youtube post in the search engines, thanks so much

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