Tags experiment

WilliamRayWalters said:
So it would actually make sense to make a second Youtube channel that you never advertise and use it purely for testing title combinations that produce the best search results for the keyword targets. Once you find the right title, you delete the video on that channel and upload it on your 'real' channel. I understand that search traffic isn't the true goal (suggested videos are) but I'd have to imagine that videos that rank higher in search are seen as more relevant to those keywords and will subsequently be seen as more relevant to other videos with high search ranking for those terms. Then, presumably, you would have a better chance at appearing in suggested videos for those videos. Interesting.
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Yup, that's exactly what I will try. Suggested videos will be a tough beast to tackle. Even for videos with no views, the suggested videos always have hundreds of thousands of views.
 
CallofBooty said:
Even for videos with no views, the suggested videos always have hundreds of thousands of views.
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You're 100% right. New videos with under 100 views never appear as suggested videos anywhere. Not even on other new videos. It rarely seems to happen. And I understand that Youtube might simply want to make a video earn a spot like that rather by proving it has some worth (as per a Schmoyer article I think i read on his site) but they could do something better to help smaller channels out. The number of views that smaller channels get is so negligible at the beginning that what would it hurt to place relevant Youtube videos with similarly low views in the suggested video area of similar videos? Like I said, I understand that Youtube wants to back a winner, but it seems like they are using the poor to make the rich even richer. I just think they could be helping out a little more in that regard.
 
Hmm, I think changing the title, description of your video only works for a short time after you upload. I tried playing with it some more, it isn't updating.

Edit: now it's working again. I think it's a bit glitchy, and doesn't update right away at times.
 
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Note that freshly uploaded videos also get a ranking bonus. This may also play a role in your experiments. So it's not necessarily the keywords but also the fresh upload that lets you rank higher than others.
 
XXLRay said:
Note that freshly uploaded videos also get a ranking bonus. This may also play a role in your experiments. So it's not necessarily the keywords but also the fresh upload that lets you rank higher than others.
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Schmoyer alluded to something like that in one of his articles on his site I believe, although I haven't experienced it first hand. That is to say, I haven't noticed that any of my videos lost significant search rank for specific keywords over time compared to day one. I'd also be curious what kind of new-video bump it could give with regard to more competitive keywords.

But what xxlray is saying is you have to do every single one of these tests over but after waiting a few weeks and then compare the data LOL.[DOUBLEPOST=1440577410,1440577314][/DOUBLEPOST]Actually, since he wasn't merely changing the Titles, but reuploading the videos over and over with different meta data, he wouldn't be able to conduct those experiments unless he uploaded slightly different copies of the same video and let them sit for weeks.
 
Supposedly all that metadata does is give YT an idea what the video is about. Using the same keywords multiple times doesn't result in higher ranking, as it used to. The actual place in ranking is determined by how well the video performs. I remember a Schmoyer video in which he showed videos with the New tag appearing in search results even though they had very few views. I bet once the testing period is over, most of those videos will lose their rank.

However I find it very interesting to see how YT connects metadata to search terms, so thank you for those tests!
 
Well the tests are more to see how different changes affect the ranking. I've done some of these with older videos too, I can get them to show up on the front page of searches that have around 80k results, but they still don't seem to be getting any views lol. I think trying to sneak into related videos will get much better results, but I don't know if its even possible unless you are already getting loads of views.
 
CallofBooty said:
I did an experiment where I uploaded the same video over and over again trying different things. I found a four word tag which only had 15,000 results, so it was easy to rank in. Every time, I deleted the video, and re-uploaded again with different variations. This was all done in incognito mode.

I uploaded the video with the same 4 word title, description, tag, and ranked first on the exact search, and 2-45 on a few 3 word combinations of the 4 word tag. Removing the description, or tags separately made no difference at all in the ranking. Removing both the description and tags, I still ranked 1 on exact search, but on other searches I dropped by 1 rank. So, title is by far the most important. I tried a compound tag, and separate words, made no difference in ranking. In one test, I kept the title the same, but made an irrelevant description, with random, but unique tags. None of the words were from the title. I ranked the same on all the tested search terms, but on one I got a rank lower.

Then I changed the title to a different 4 word tag, which was also easy to rank in. The description and tags were the same as before. For the new tag, I ranked easily on many 3 word combinations. For the old terms however, I dropped a lot in the rankings. I then repeated it without the tags, but kept the description, it had zero effect. Next I put back the tags, but deleted the description, and now I couldn't find my video at all for the old search terms. So new title, old tags and description, made a big drop in rankings for the old keywords, and once the description was removed, I couldn't find the video at all.

Next I repeated the experiment keeping the old 4 word title, but this time I made a long drawn out description, mentioning each of the keywords several times, For tags I used a combination of long tail tags, and single words, and even irrelevant words. It made no effect from when I just had the 4 word description and tag, in one of the searches I improved by 3 spots. Then I changed the title to the new one from the previous test and repeated it. This time I dropped by about 10 spots in the ranking. So if you spam tags that are in the title/description, it seems to be ok, but if you are spamming tags and description that aren't part of the title, I think it will negatively affect you.

Finally, I found a four letter tag which only had 10 search results. I used it as my tag. No matter what I did, I could not show up in the search results for this tag as long as it was left out of the title and/or description. So if you put PewDiePie in your tags, but it isn't part of the title or description, you might think you are one of the millions of results when people search PewDiePie, but you probably aren't.
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Really great! This is something I really have to try because I'm lost right now...it doesn't matter what I do I can't see any difference.
 
ChristmasEveryDay said:
Really great! This is something I really have to try because I'm lost right now...it doesn't matter what I do I can't see any difference.
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Well I don't think you will be able to see a major difference. I don't think there is any magical optimization that you can do to make your videos rank number on searches. I've been playing with it a lot, I notice that with some tweeking, you can make your video rank a few spots higher, even on very popular searches, but if you are on the 7th page of the results, I don't think you can jump to first. It really does come down to view time.

Another thing I noticed is that on some really popular searches you get videos that were uploaded a few minutes/hours ago, and already have a few thousand views. I click on the channel, it has 0 subscribers, and only this 1 video. I check where this video was shared, and it wasn't shared anywhere at all. I wondering how these videos are getting their views. I think they somehow showed up in suggested videos, and it picked up from there.
 
CallofBooty said:
on some really popular searches you get videos that were uploaded a few minutes/hours ago, and already have a few thousand views.... I wondering how these videos are getting their views.
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Well, you said it was a popular search. If you see it ranking high, other people will as well, and click on it. But if the video is bad and people click off early, none of those views will matter once the 'new' period ends and YT starts ranking by watch time.
 
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