Rule #1 for building a website should be “don’t send your visitors direct to your competition.”  Well, it’s probably not rule #1 because why would anyone even need that rule?

If you’re embedding YouTube videos on your website, this rule may be for you.  By default, YouTube suggests related videos at the end of each video you watch.  Those videos could be your competitors.  Never fear, it’s easy to turn them off (at least when you are embedding them) by adding a tiny piece of code.  Check out this quick video to see how it’s done.

UPDATE: in 2019, this trick only turns off videos from other channels. YouTube will still recommend other videos from your channel. See this blog post about turning off videos from other channels on embedded YouTube videos.

Who would send customers direct to their competition’s website? Not you!

Now that you know this little tip, make sure your website is following this simple rule.  And if you have a bunch of videos, it’s as easy as going through the HTML code, and adding this tag each video ?rel=0.

Here’s the code that shows related videos:

<iframe src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/uTxb6UUnJds” width=”610″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”></iframe>

And here’s the code that hides related videos:

<iframe src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/uTxb6UUnJds?rel=0” width=”610″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”></iframe>

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you have something to add, in the comments below.