Can you have too many tags?

[Weebster]

When I upload a new video I usually try to put us many relevant tags as possible, but a thought crossed my mind - Can you put too many tags in your video causing search engine to treat your videos like a spam or something?

 

[Scootakip [Lana]]

If you put too many tags, Youtube will stop you from saving the video info.

 

[zhkopec]

Is there a recent case study or any data on tags? My most successful videos have 0 tags.

 

[Stike96]

There's a 500 character limit on tabs and you should put as many relevant tags in there as possible, you can use a plugin like tubebuddy to show how many characters you've used.

 

[Weebster]

Okay I think I need to rephrase the question. I know about character limit . But what I was asking is putting too many tags hurtful. I've heard inconclusive information from different people ,some say that 10 tags is a golden number and you shouldn't go any higher, and some say that number of tags doesn't matter. For example in my last videos I've used -
Mario,Super Mario,Super Mario Odyssey,Super Mario: Odyssey,Odyssey,The Odyssey,gameplay,cappy,top hat mario,frog mario,transformation,ghost cap,ghosts,mario odyssey,weebster,Let's play,review,playtrough,commentary,ending,secret moons,secrets,moons,purple coins,coins,outfits,switch,nintendo,nintendo switch,full,guide,boss,all bosses,New donk city,city,donkey kong,luigi,princess peach,super,theme,odyssey theme,mario music,complete,secret moon,part 5,rabbids
And that is 499 words, and a lot of tags, and I am asking if that is too many tags or not.

 

[MentallyGames]

I have not mastered SEO at all, but I think researching quality of your keywords is important and not so much the quantity. If you can find 500 keywords that are all solid and can drive you traffic, then do 500. If you can only do 10/20/30/40 whatever, then do that number. The way I see it is that information about this is inconclusive for a very good reason, namely the fact that there simply is no right answer to it.

 

[babyteeth4]

I've wondered about this myself, but after making over 1,000 videos across two channels, I've decided that it doesn't matter. Some videos succeed, some don't (I tend to max out my tags every time). I do think your tags should be focused on what's most likely to bring people to your video and at the same time they should be representative of the video.

I try to think of all the different ways people might search for my video or videos like it, and then if I have space, tags for the channel in general.

 

[Courtney Candice]

YouTube has a liner on how many tags you can use, if you go over the limey they will let you know and you won’t be to save to upload the video until you remove some of the tags.

 

[Crown]

Moved to the strategy / technique forum.

I do think your tags should be focused on what's most likely to bring people to your video and at the same time they should be representative of the video.

Yeah, this hits the nail on the head and the bit in bold is the only thing that could get a channel in trouble if they don't follow that guideline. If a channel puts tags not related to the content of the video in an attempt to piggy back off someone else's brand or success, then it's considered "misleading metadata" by YT and can result in a community strike.

"All metadata should be representative of the content contained in your video. Among other things, metadata added in an attempt to game search algorithms will lead to the removal of your video and a strike against your account."

Source: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?hl=en

For example in my last videos I've used -
Mario,Super Mario,Super Mario Odyssey,Super Mario: Odyssey,Odyssey,The Odyssey,gameplay,cappy,top hat mario,frog mario,transformation,ghost cap,ghosts,mario odyssey,weebster,Let's play,review,playtrough,commentary,ending,secret moons,secrets,moons,purple coins,coins,outfits,switch,nintendo,nintendo switch,full,guide,boss,all bosses,New donk city,city,donkey kong,luigi,princess peach,super,theme,odyssey theme,mario music,complete,secret moon,part 5,rabbids

See @babyteeth4 's and my post above - Those tags are fine so long as they do indeed reflect the content of that particular video.

However, as an aside, from an SEO perspective, as a small channel you have a close to 0% chance of ranking for short keyword phrases like "Super Mario"

I don't want to derail the thread and I'm not going to spoonfeed you but very quickly let me explain. Since "Super Mario" is a short phrase about something that probably millions of other creators are making videos about and are also targeting the same phrase, then there is going to be a lot of competition to try to get ranked. Makes sense?

- Check out the results for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+mario Look at how many search results there are - over 14 million
- Now look at the top 10 results on that page. Nearly all of them are verified channels with 100k+ subs and/or the video has millions of views. Do you really think you can rank above them? If not, how long do you think it would take for your video to rise up in search and overtake them? (The answer is that it's impossible.)

Advice: Keep some of the short popular tags like "Super Mario" - No need to delete them. But you also need to add some less competitive terms by using "longtail search phrases" It's your niche, you should know what longer phrases your viewers would be searching for. An example could be "The red castle in Super Mario" (if there is a red castle obv) - By making the tag longer, it becomes more specific. Since it's more specific, fewer videos will have the same tag right? There will therefore be fewer total search results and the top 10 will probably be easier to beat. The potential traffic for a longtail search phrase like "The red castle in Super Mario" will obv be a lot less than the shorter "Mario Bros" because fewer people are searching for it per day BUT you have a better chance of getting well -ranked. So the decision is: Do you want a 1% chance of getting 20k views per day (only using short-tail tags like "Super Mario") or do you want an 80% chance of getting 50 views per day for a longtail tag such as "The red castle in Super Mario" ? As a small channel, you should be aiming for the latter.

The above advice is relevant for all your metadata, in particular the title and description. (Your titles are waay too generic and using short-tail phrases and your descriptions are not really SEO optimised either.) You should include the same longtail phrases in both the titles and descriptions. Oh and obviously make sure the content itself is actually about "The red castle in Super Mario" (or whatever the longtail phrase is) which brings me to my final point. - You should do the SEO analysis BEFORE even making any videos. Decide all your longtail phrases and they will form the topics of each video. Then you make the video about that specific subject. That way, the content matches exactly what people have searched for. Why is that important? Well they will hopefully watch the whole thing because it's exactly what they were looking for. This results in higher than average audience retention which will drive the video up in the rankings and ensures the algorithm picks it up. ie Your channel will grow.

Good luck.

 

[EVO]

after making over 1,000 videos across two channels, I've decided that it doesn't matter. Some videos succeed, some don't

Same here