Careful adding videos to mobile websites

We’ve come across several instances of the last few weeks with websites featuring auto-loading videos on their mobile home pages. This is a very bad idea! Videos should never auto-load on mobile for three main reasons. Firstly, they significantly slow down the loading of the page, which can be frustrating for users, especially when they are on a slow data connection on their mobiles. Secondly, they can consume a huge amount of data when loading and this can be a problem for users who have data limits on their phones. And thirdly, slow page loading can affect the rankings of the page in search.

The only time a video should auto-load on mobile is if the phone is connected via a Wi-Fi connection, as there are no data limits. So, before using videos to enhance pages on mobile, it’s important to consider the impact on users, their data usage and the potential impact on rankings. Videos are great to make pages more interesting and engaging, but they need to be used with a little caution, especially on mobile.

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