How To Embed A Youtube Video In Google Sites

Three tips to help you share video, either publicly or privately, in the new Google Sites.

Google Sites provides an easy way to create and share web pages. I've seen organizations use Sites for public product and service information, internal employee communication, and for training. Increasingly, I've noticed that people use video to either show how something works or to add a bit of humanity to a project status update.

The new Google Sites not only lets you share video from Google-owned sources, but other video services, too. And the new Sites now supports more private pages. Here are three things you need to know.

1. Insert YouTube or Google Drive videos in your Site

You can upload your videos to either YouTube or Google Drive, then insert the video into your new Google Site from a desktop browser. Generally, I see people upload videos intended for public sharing to YouTube. Videos intended for more limited use, such as viewing by employees or students, are often stored on Google Drive.

To insert a YouTube video to your new Site, select the YouTube menu option from the menu to the right of your page, then either search for a video or select a video you previously uploaded to the service.

To insert a video from Google Drive, select the "From Drive" option from the menu to the right of your page, then navigate to the video file you'd previously stored on Google Drive.

Settings to share a site with anyone, with anyone at an organization, or with specific people — You can make your new Google Site as public or private as you choose, with settings added in January 2018.

2. Your Site can be either private or public

In late January 2018, Google added the ability to make new Google Sites as public or private as you choose. Now, when you publish a Google Site, you can restrict access to people you specify, to anyone in your organization, or open it up to anyone in the world.

Screenshot that shows box to paste embed code content in a new Google Site page — With the new Google Sites, embed video from third-party sites as well as YouTube and Google Drive.

3. Sites also lets you embed video from other services

The new Google Sites allows you to embed video from other services, too, such as Vimeo, among others. In a desktop browser, go to the source of your video, follow their steps to obtain an embed code, then on the new Google Sites select "Embed," choose "Embed Code," and then paste the embed code from your source site into the box.

See: How to embed content from the web to your Google Site

Your experience?

How do you share video with the new Google Sites? Do the additional privacy controls make it possible for you to switch from classic Google Sites to the new Google Sites? Let me know your experience with the new Google Sites in the comments or on Twitter ( @awolber).

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Also see

5 key features of the new Google Sites (TechRepublic)
How to make Google Sites easier to share: 6 tips (TechRepublic)
Microsoft launches Stream, its Office 365 business video service (ZDNet)
Embed video into a LibreOffice Impress presentation (TechRepublic)
5 reasons to go vertical for your next video or presentation, and how to do it right (TechRepublic)