Giving yourself watch time to rank better in search?

G-Legend

G-Legend

Well-Known Member
So I was telling my friend, who also happens to be a youtuber, that I was experiencing slow growth on the platform and that I needed to rank better in search. So then he went on to tell me that what he's started to do is log out of his youtube account, mask/change his IP address (I guess youtube will know which one is yours) and started giving his own videos a boost of watch time so they preform better in search. My question is: does this actually work? Like can I give myself watch time to help boost my videos in the search? What about clicking your own ads? Because I know it's against the agreement to but if you log out and mask your IP, would someone still get caught and kicked from youtube's partner program?

Probably wont do either of these things because I don't want to risk it but I'm curious.
 
Youtube has gotten better and better the last several years at detecting users who mask their IP. But even if they could get away with it, it's not worth the risk. Would you really want to risk all that hard work, and one day getting caught and lose it all?
 
PositivelyBrainwashed said:
Youtube has gotten better and better the last several years at detecting users who mask their IP. But even if they could get away with it, it's not worth the risk. Would you really want to risk all that hard work, and one day getting caught and lose it all?
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Yeah that's what I was thinking too. Is giving your own videos watch time against youtube policy or any kind of agreement?
 
G-Legend said:
Yeah that's what I was thinking too. Is giving your own videos watch time against youtube policy or any kind of agreement?
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I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with watching your videos at least once, especially for detecting any big errors or mistakes. And from my experience, Youtube will remove any duplicate views a few days later anyways.
 
It sounds like a bit of a desperate measure to me.There are so many better ways to increase watch time, I really doubt that one extra view, and a "dodgy" view at that, will make any difference.
Take some time to watch youtube videos that give advice on how to increase watch time and improve your SEO. Using lists, asking questions that will be answered at the end of the video, and keeping the content engaging are all ways to keep a viewer's eyes on your video - without going to the lengths of an IP address hider and then watching your own video...that in any case would only count as one extra view albeit with 100% watch time.
 
What is one view? I watch my own videos all the time, not to gain views, but because I want to make sure I'm still happy with a video months after the upload. But one view, or 5 views, is not going to rank you better in the SEO. Maybe if you rewatch your video 50-200 times... But who can stomach that? :giggle:
 
I don't think it is worth the risk, what I would suggest is trying new things that keep the viewer interested longer.
 
The algo is AI based now. It's got adaptive learning. You ain't going to fool it by an ip change. There is a lot more information exchanged in the stack than just the address. Google knows everything about you.

If you really want to test it out, setup a few playlists, go to an internet cafe on the other side of town, and after browsing Yt from a dummy account for 10 minutes, accidentally stumble upon your playlists and sit there for a few hours watching it. Don't know if the internet cafe fees will be worth the extra watch time. If you can get 20 of your mates to do the same, you may have something - you'll need to check Analytics to see if the views and times have registered. But that's crossing over into the dark side, not a place you want to be if you are serious about your Yt career.
 
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