Even though online video can account for up to 84% of internet traffic, the biggest video website of them all, YouTube, can still be slow for man users.  It still stinks when you’re trying to enjoy a piece of content and a Youtube video takes forever to load.

The problem could be that your internet connection is slow ….

Your internet connection may be the problem.   Try:

1. Switching to your 5GHz network (that is, if your router supports it)
2. Do a speed test — If your network speed is  less than 5 Mbps, you may need to find another connection in order to stream Youtube Videos.

 

If your internet connection is up, online, and fast for other sites..

1. Check to see if youtube is having connection problems.
2. Switch to the HTML5 Video Player.
3. Switch to the standard video player (as opposed to HD).
4. Delete your temporary internet files.
5. Delete your cookies.
6. Disable browser plugins.
7. Switch to another browser, like Google Chrome.  Or Opera.
8. Try disabling flash.
9. Try upgrading Flash to the latest version.

It’s not an immediate solution, but.. if the problem is your ISP, you may have to look into another source for internet service.   If you’re lucky enough to have fiber in your area, I highly recommend it!

Looking for an immediate solution?  You may just have to start your youtube vide and click pause while the video loads.  Click play when the video has buffered far enough ahead.

For more information on how to deal with slow youtube load times, click here to view youtube’s official guides.

If you’ve found something that works to improve youtube’s speed for you, please tweet me.