Jan Hoek

<p>Vital Video is a WordPress block plugin designed to improve Core Web Vitals performance when displaying YouTube videos.</p>
<p>Instead of traditional embedding, it provides a lightweight, performance-optimized solution that first loads a clickable video thumbnail.</p>
<p>The Vital Video Block doesn’t play videos in the WordPress editor. It’s designed to prioritize performance and user experience on your frontend. To test video behavior, simply preview your post or page.</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Performance-first YouTube video display.  </li>
<li>Automatic video thumbnail and title retrieval.  </li>
<li>WebP image support for faster image loading.  </li>
<li>Customizable aspect ratios (4:3 and 16:9).  </li>
<li>Displays the video title in the image.  </li>
<li>Multiple thumbnail quality options.  </li>
<li>Minimal initial page load impact.  </li>
<li>Option to disable WebP images if unavailable.  </li>
<li>Advanced video playback controls.  </li>
<li>Uses YouTube’s no-cookie thumbnail service.  </li>
<li>Respects modern browser autoplay policies.  </li>
<li>Alt text matches the video title.</li>
<li>Thumbnail dimensions set based on selected image size:
<ul>
<li>HQ (480×320): Default size  </li>
<li>SD (640×480): Standard size  </li>
<li>MAX (1280×720): Highest available resolution</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Vital Video Settings</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Aspect Ratio</strong>: Choose between 16:9 and 4:3.  </li>
<li><strong>Mute Toggle</strong>: Control video playback behavior.  </li>
<li><strong>Thumbnail Quality</strong>: Select from High, Standard, or Maximum resolution.  </li>
<li><strong>Disable WebP</strong>: Turn off WebP usage if unavailable.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Mute Toggle</h3>
<p>The Mute Toggle feature is designed primarily for mobile devices, adhering to browser autoplay policies.</p>
<p><strong>Mute Toggle Off (Sound On):</strong></p>
<p>Videos require two clicks to start playing:</p>
<ol>
<li>The first click loads the video.  </li>
<li>The second click begins playback. Ideal for maintaining user control and preventing unexpected audio.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Mute Toggle On (Sound Off):</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Videos play with a single click.  </li>
<li>Automatically starts muted.  </li>
<li>Perfect for situations where immediate video playback is desired.  </li>
<li>Complies with browser autoplay restrictions.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Disable WebP Images</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>WebP is enabled by default.</strong> Most thumbnails will use the WebP format.  </li>
<li>However, if you encounter a dummy placeholder image, try selecting a different thumbnail size to see if another WebP version exists.  </li>
<li>If no WebP images are available, you can enable the “Disable WebP Images” option as a last resort. This – will use fallback formats like JPG instead.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Only use “Disable WebP Images” when absolutely necessary!</em></p>
<h3>External Services</h3>
<p>This plugin connects to YouTube’s services to embed videos and retrieve video information:</p>
<p><strong>YouTube Video Service:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>The plugin connects to YouTube’s embed service (youtube-nocookie.com) to display videos</li>
<li>When a video is played, it loads the video player from YouTube’s servers</li>
<li>YouTube’s terms of service: https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms</li>
<li>YouTube’s privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>YouTube oEmbed API:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Used to fetch video titles when adding videos to your content</li>
<li>Sends the YouTube video ID to retrieve the video title</li>
<li>API documentation: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>YouTube Thumbnail Service:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Retrieves video thumbnail images from i.ytimg.com</li>
<li>Only loads thumbnails for videos you’ve embedded</li>
<li>No personal data is sent to this service</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> This plugin uses YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode by default, which helps protect your visitors’ privacy by not setting cookies until the video is played.</p>
<h3>Contributing</h3>
<p>Contributions are welcome! You can support Vital Video in various ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Write about the plugin on your blog or share it on social media.  </li>
<li><a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/vital-video-block/" rel="nofollow ugc">Translate the plugin into your language</a> using your WordPress.org account.  </li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/vital-video-block/reviews/#new-post" rel="ugc">Review the plugin here on WordPress.org</a>.</li>
</ul>


Vital Video Block

A YouTube block optimized for performance, allowing you to embed YouTube videos without harming your Core Web Vitals.

eatzeni

<p>Track core web vitals data and save history, powers a dashboard with 24h and one month of historic data, shows worsts pages.<br />
Send also into Google Analytics (both gtag and ga supported) and can be extended to send also to Google Tag Manager and third parties</p>
<p>NOTE: This plugin does not send data to Google Tag Manager events, it only adds them to the dataLayer object but requires additional configuration on the Tag manager dashboard.</p>
<h3>What is Core Web Vitals?</h3>
<p>From the official page (https://web.dev/vitals/) Web Vitals is:<br />
    […] an initiative by Google to provide […] quality signals that are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web.<br />
    […]<br />
    Core Web Vitals are the subset of Web Vitals that apply to all web pages, should be measured by all site owners, and will be surfaced across all Google tools.<br />
    Each of the Core Web Vitals represents a distinct facet of the user experience, is measurable in the field, and reflects the real-world experience of a critical user-centric outcome.</p>
<h3>Why are them important?</h3>
<p>They are important not only to improve user experience on websites but also because since 2021 Core Web Vitals will become official ranking signals for Google (https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/05/evaluating-page-experience.html).</p>
<h3>HOW TO track into Google Tag Manager</h3>
<p>This plugin adds following data to the dataLayer object:<br />
    dataLayer.push({<br />
        event: “web-vitals”,<br />
        event_category: “Web Vitals”,<br />
        event_action: ,<br />
        event_value: ,<br />
        event_label: ,<br />
    });</p>
<p>You only need to create a custom event trigger in your Google Tag Manager (see https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/7679219?hl=en#), create Data Layer Variables and track those as Google Analytics Events on Tag Manager.</p>
<h3>HOW TO track into third party tools or custom Google Tag Manager syntax</h3>
<p>This plugins allows developers to listen for data captured and track them as their prefer. You only need to create a global Javascript function named<br />
    window.wpWebVitalTrack<br />
and you’re done!<br />
E.g.:<br />
    window.wpWebVitalTrack = function(event_id, event_name, event_value, event_delta) {<br />
        console.log(“Ready to do something amazing!”, event_id, event_name, event_value, event_delta);<br />
        // do something amazing!<br />
    }</p>
<p>NOTE: create this method as early as possible to avoid missing some event!</p>


Web Vitals Tracking

Track core web vitals data and save history, powers a dashboard with 24h and one month of historic data, shows worsts pages.

Vital Video Block vs Web Vitals Tracking