Accommodation can be expensive. And video hosting can be even more expensive. I have paid up to $75 per month for video hosting. It was worth it? Not really. Since then, I’ve always been interested in figuring out ways to lower the cost, but still keep the high streaming quality of, say, an Amazon S3 account. It is not an easy task. But now I’ve figured out a way to make YouTube take care of that nasty hosting bill for me.
A while back, YouTube created a cool feature called Unlisted Videos. It gives you the ability to keep a video from the YouTube search engine and your channel, and share the video only with a certain group of people.
Isn’t that the same as a private video? You can ask.
No. Private videos are meant to be shared with only 25 other people on YouTube. Not only do you have to tell YouTube specifically who can see it by typing in all of the YouTube channel names, but you also have to be friends with all of them. Not to mention once you hit 25… that’s it.
So while private videos were great, it was frustrating to use because anyone viewing them HAD to have a YouTube account and HAD to be your friend. It was a clumsy system that no one used.
But now with the unlisted video feature, anyone who has the link to that specific YouTube video can watch it regardless of their friend status or even if they have a YouTube account. The same goes for embedded videos. If you embed an unlisted YouTube video on your site, that’s the only place it can be viewed.
Here’s how to make any video unlisted.
Before you begin, make sure you’re signed in.
Step 1) Click on your YouTube name on the home page and select my videos
This will open your videos in the back of your account.
Step 2) Choose a video you want to change from public to unlisted and click Edit
This will open the editing function of your video.
Step 3) Scroll down to Streaming and Sharing Options section and click Not included in listing
This will also give you a new URL. Use it when you want to share the direct link with others via email or Twitter.
Step 4) Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes
Now that the video is not listed, it’s time to embed it.
Step 5) Click see video on the page
This will open your video where you can get the embed code.
Step 6) Copy the embed code and paste it on your blog or website
You now have a video that cannot be found on YouTube and can only be found on your website!