I don't claim to be an expert on SEO or metadata, but it seems to me that in threads talking about these subjects, there is a basic misunderstanding that a lot of people have. Based on everything I've read so far, I thought of an analogy to explain SEO & metadata very simply. Please let me know if you think it is accurate or not!
The basic concept is this: YouTube cannot "see" videos.
Think of YouTube as someone who recommends books to his friends. He wants to be known as a good source, so he only wants to recommend people books that they will love. But he has one BIG problem...He never actually reads any books!
Instead, he looks at reviews, looks at book plot summaries, reads the wikipedia page on the book and the author, and then reads the back cover and inside flaps of books. He looks at people's reviews to see how many people finished the book vs how many people put away the book without finishing. He look at the Amazon reviews and the bestseller list to see who books have been purchased the most, as well as which books are coming up in the rankings.
In this analogy, "metadata" represents the stuff about the book that is not the book itself. From this information, he tries to decide whether his friends would like a particular book, what book they might be talking about when they make comments, and so on. Additionally, when people ask him for book recommendations, he uses this "metadata" to determine which books are worth sharing with which people.
In YouTube, instead of an inside flap or a back cover summary, you have several tools to help: for example, you might just explain in sentences and paragraphs what the video is about ("description"). You might give a quick phrase to describe it, draw people in, or raise interest ("title") . You might give them several general topics and words that the video is about ("tags"). And if you speak in the video, you might even give them a transcript so they would know what was said ("submitted subtitles.")
In this analogy, "analytics" represents the sales and popularity data that the non-reader book fan looks at. YouTube does its own research by seeing what people who have already watched the videos already think about it. So they essentially are asking people who watched the video, "Hey, how much of this video did you watch? How many other videos did you watch afterward?" In YouTube terms, this is your "watch time", just one of the many things you can also see in your analytics.
YouTube takes these two things -- "Metadata" and "analytics" -- to determine what topics and search terms are relevant to your videos, and how highly it should rank your videos. YouTube's goal is to maximize watch time for its viewers, so it wants to show its viewers videos that they are likely to enjoy so they will keep watching YouTube.
In the book world, the same person usually isn't writing the inside flap, back cover, book review, and wikipedia page. But in YouTube, you get the control -- it is your job as a creator to write your titles, tags, and descriptions effectively to help YouTube recommend your video to the right audiences.
The basic concept is this: YouTube cannot "see" videos.
Think of YouTube as someone who recommends books to his friends. He wants to be known as a good source, so he only wants to recommend people books that they will love. But he has one BIG problem...He never actually reads any books!
Instead, he looks at reviews, looks at book plot summaries, reads the wikipedia page on the book and the author, and then reads the back cover and inside flaps of books. He looks at people's reviews to see how many people finished the book vs how many people put away the book without finishing. He look at the Amazon reviews and the bestseller list to see who books have been purchased the most, as well as which books are coming up in the rankings.
In this analogy, "metadata" represents the stuff about the book that is not the book itself. From this information, he tries to decide whether his friends would like a particular book, what book they might be talking about when they make comments, and so on. Additionally, when people ask him for book recommendations, he uses this "metadata" to determine which books are worth sharing with which people.
In YouTube, instead of an inside flap or a back cover summary, you have several tools to help: for example, you might just explain in sentences and paragraphs what the video is about ("description"). You might give a quick phrase to describe it, draw people in, or raise interest ("title") . You might give them several general topics and words that the video is about ("tags"). And if you speak in the video, you might even give them a transcript so they would know what was said ("submitted subtitles.")
In this analogy, "analytics" represents the sales and popularity data that the non-reader book fan looks at. YouTube does its own research by seeing what people who have already watched the videos already think about it. So they essentially are asking people who watched the video, "Hey, how much of this video did you watch? How many other videos did you watch afterward?" In YouTube terms, this is your "watch time", just one of the many things you can also see in your analytics.
YouTube takes these two things -- "Metadata" and "analytics" -- to determine what topics and search terms are relevant to your videos, and how highly it should rank your videos. YouTube's goal is to maximize watch time for its viewers, so it wants to show its viewers videos that they are likely to enjoy so they will keep watching YouTube.
In the book world, the same person usually isn't writing the inside flap, back cover, book review, and wikipedia page. But in YouTube, you get the control -- it is your job as a creator to write your titles, tags, and descriptions effectively to help YouTube recommend your video to the right audiences.