Embedding YouTube videos without “related videos”

Here’s how to stop links for “related videos” appearing at the end of YouTube videos embedded in eduBuzz blog sites.

A YouTube video showing related videos at the end

By default, YouTube displays a selection of related videos when a video stops playing. They’re suggested by YouTube based on the information from the original video; you can’t control which ones are shown. The same thing happens, by default, with YouTube videos embedded into other web sites.

Sometimes, though, teachers prefer to turn off that feature. It might be because the related videos could be distracting in class, or out of concerns that an unsuitable video might one day appear.

YouTube have provided a simple way to turn off the feature. Here’s how it’s done.

A typical YouTube video’s web page has an address (URL) like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl9avH5XdnM  (I’m deliberately leaving the hyperlink working to prevent auto-embedding and allow the URL to be seen.) To embed it, we just disable the link (click anywhere on the linked text, and click the Unlink toolbar button). It will then display with the related videos like this:

We can pass the message to YouTube that we don’t want the related videos by adding another piece of information to the URL, &rel=0. The URL then looks like this (again, I’m leaving the link working to prevent auto-embedding):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl9avH5XdnM&rel=0

A YouTube video without related videos.

If I now remove the hyperlink the video will be embedded just as before, but related videos won’t be displayed at the end.

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