We do a ton of YouTube SEO for clients.
A great way to add a ranking boost to videos is by adding the video transcript into the description section.
Problem is, typing out a transcript is a pain.
I don’t present problems without offering a solution. In this case, I’m giving you two:
Sound good? Let’s get into it.
Pull Your Own YouTube Video Transcripts
Text Guide: Get closed caption [CC] text without typing it by hand
- Firebug is a lightweight browser plug in that’s a MUST if you’re a web analyst. It allows you to easily perform a number of technical debugging actions on HTML, DOM elements and live editing of CSS properties.
- It also helps you get the transcript for your YouTube videos.
- Download the free add on here: Firebug
- Install Firebug and restart your browser
- Head over to YouTube and open the video with the transcript you want to download.
- Open Firebug: Tools -> Web Developer -> Firebug -> Open Firebug
- Go to “Net” in the Firebug tab
- If disabled, click on the button to enable it
- Refresh your browser
- Press the closed caption [CC] button located in the bottom right hand corner of your video
- In the Firebug search bar (top right of the Firebug screen), type ‘timedtext’ (no quotes)
- Locate the 2nd instance of ‘get timedtext’
- Right click on the ‘get timedtext’ and open in a new window
- Your video transcript will be in the new browser. You may have to do some decoding and re scripting, as YouTube voice recognition greatly depends on the quality of your audio. However, this is a huge time saver from writing the whole thing out!
2. The Cheapest Video Transcription Service on the Web
What I just laid out is a nice hack, but it’s not perfect.
You’ll notice you still have to do significant cleaning in order to get the transcript to appear how you want it.
That’s why I don’t mess with all that – I pay someone to do it.
If you’ve looked around the web for a video transcription service, you’ve probably noticed they range from $1.00 – $4.00 per minute.
That’s insane.
I found a website that does it for $.60 per minute. That’s right buddy, $.60 per minute.
What’s even better, they have an automated platform that allows for easy ordering. Bulk upload your videos or YouTube video URLs and their team transcribes and formats them, perfectly.
GET TRANSCRIPTS
Wow! I am learning so much from your blog. I never even fathomed that I could get transcripts from Youtube. Thank for sharing!
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Very informative. I like the step by step guide and informative video’s. This is a skill that will come in very handy for any marketer or video creator. Thanks for posting this guide.
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You’re very welcome Laura
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I can tell you really got a lot of experience with this. Great site!
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Darn this is brilliant! Genius Man Genius!
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dude how did you learn all of this? freakin awesome!!!
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I read somewhere in a forum where somebody was trying to sell how to do this, so thank you a great deal for providing this helpful info for free.
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Really enjoyed the vid! I learned a lot about youtube video transcripts.
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Does firebug contain any spyware? I am hesitant about downloading stuff I never heard of.
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Some people think the description section is unimportant. But that is probably more important than the vid itself in the eyes of search engines.
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and all the time I’ve been writing these out. Man! wish I had seen your tutorial earlier…oh well guess better later than never.
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Didn’t know making YouTube transcripts was this easy. Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for sharing! Helps me a lot!
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TYVM you’ve solved all my prlmeobs
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Is there any way to get the transcript where you don’t have access to the ‘CC’ button? I have a locked (private) video I want to do this with but I can’t get at the CC button. Thanks.
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Hey, a guy from Koemei here. Just wanted to let you know that if you want to get a machine transcript in an easy way and even to search your videos based on the transcript, you may want to try Koemei https://koemei.com using a free trial. Moreover, you can integrate the video search into your own website. Hope it be of use for your.
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Followed the steps however, there is only 1 instance of “timedtext”. Any idea as to the issue?
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what plugin did you use to lock that link? pretty cool
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It’s just for English language, but for another laguage it is not working. Have you another idea for it.
thanks
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On Safari (web-Inspector) is possible to do this, but we have to copy from the element tag (div “transcript-scrollbox”).
Thanks for sharing, 😉
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Any tips on extracting from the xml?
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I use video transcripts on my blogposts – if I use the same transcript in my YouTube video description will I get penalised for duplicate content?
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no, but i wouldnt use them on both…i like to use the full transcript on blog posts and a summary on youtube videos
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I am inputting timed text in to the search but nothing is showing…
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I was excited when I saw your tip/tutorial here, but for the life of me I can’t see the text. Here is a screenshot of the speaker at a funeral. The video has CC, so I enabled it as well as added “timedtext” with no quotes into the search box under the NET tab. It looks like a running list of IP addresses, hmm, am I overlooking something perhaps? I apologize for posting a link here, but I don’t see a way to upload an image into your comment form here. https://goo.gl/photos/V7UU77JDpif8gFrr6
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I have another question, I promise I’m not spamming, I just see that my previous comment hasn’t been reviewed yet, but I’d really like to ask this also.
The Firefox Add-ons page says this is no longer supported and suggests using the Mozilla dev tools. Does that operate the same as this somewhere deep down in the setting?
New question:
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not sure, this post is pretty old, sorry! :/
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Succinct, actionable info. Thank you! Tried selecting five stars but no visual feedback when I clicked.
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Thank you Brian!
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Was looking for just this. Thank you.
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