So using the video custom post type all we need is the share link from you tube our system works with just using the video id from YT so they provide https://youtu.be/rk7mDWQ5yWE?si=ejbkjm1Qcwl3s9ZP we don’t need anything from the ? mark onwards, nor do we need the first part https://youtu.be/ we only want rk7mDWQ5yWE.

The reason we do it this way is because using the full provided link means it has tracking data, so when your web page loads it pops off to YT to check the video is available, so if you have 8 videos it does 8 checks before it loads the page. Ok it’s only milliseconds on the page load but if a video has been deleted or YT are having server issues your site will subsequently hang while it keeps check for the file that YT can’t find.

Our system only checks for the video when the user interacts with the play button.