What the Hell is this and How Does it Work?

[chill_bro_videos]

Looks like people are using a last bit of a URL for keyword searches to get their videos to rank higher. What are your thoughts? Tube Buddy is saying this is strong? Please see attached image.

 

[The NotARubicon!]

That image is so small i can't make anything out.
Can you fill us in with a few more details?

 

[chill_bro_videos]

A big YouTuber has tags in his video like, "ucer55381wiqo1w_izgci5dq" and "uci9cdo6239razppbzo9y5sa" in his tags. He has a few of them actually. TubeBuddy is telling me these keywords are low competition and high search, and thus are highly effective keywords. Obviously nobody searches those terms, so what's the deal?

 

[KiddieToysReview]

If you look at one of his tags "ucxsz6jvymzvhtkrahwzc7hq", then you search on Yt search bar, you get taken to this channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCxSz6JVYmzVhtkraHWZC7HQ (which belongs to Liza Koshy)

So instead of using the name "Liza Koshy" he's using the unique channel identifier ucxsz6jvymzvhtkrahwzc7hq. Internally the algo references channels by the unique string identifier, not the user defined channel name.

So in a way he's being sneaky, he wants to use other channel names in his tags to get his channel associated in the algo with other big channels (against TOS), but do it in a way that the typical Ytbuer would not know what he's doing.

Another example with the tag: ucer55381wiqo1w_izgci5dq

 

[chill_bro_videos]

If you look at one of his tags "ucxsz6jvymzvhtkrahwzc7hq", then you search on Yt search bar, you get taken to this channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCxSz6JVYmzVhtkraHWZC7HQ (which belongs to Liza Koshy)

So instead of using the name "Liza Koshy" he's using the unique channel identifier ucxsz6jvymzvhtkrahwzc7hq. Internally the algo references channels by the unique string identifier, not the user defined channel name.

So in a way he's being sneaky, he wants to use other channel names in his tags to get his channel associated in the algo with other big channels (against TOS), but do it in a way that the typical Ytbuer would not know what he's doing.

How effective is this? Is TubeBuddy correct in its rating system here?

 

[KiddieToysReview]

How effective is this? Is TubeBuddy correct in its rating system here?

Well, he's trying to game the algo. The thing is, with his sub count and traffic, he doesn't need to. Perhaps this strategy worked in 2009, these days the algo is fairly intelligent, it can't be gamed by tags. Tags have very little weight these days.

 

[EVO]

Tags have very little weight these days.

In your opinion what does have weight these days?

 

[KiddieToysReview]

In your opinion what does have weight these days?

Direct from the horse's mouth - watch time and the contribution your video makes to viewer session time. On the Seo side, titles and the first few sentences of the description. Things like CC and intl translations help foreign viewers as well. Playlists help organize your content into viewer friendly lists. Tags are way down the list. Things like backlinks, external embedding, are pretty much useless unless they contribute to watch and session time. Anything that kills the viewer session should be avoided like the plague, ie don't take viewers off Yt to social media.

 

[Kristeen]

Direct from the horse's mouth - watch time and the contribution your video makes to viewer session time. On the Seo side, titles and the first few sentences of the description. Things like CC and intl translations help foreign viewers as well. Playlists help organize your content into viewer friendly lists. Tags are way down the list. Things like backlinks, external embedding, are pretty much useless unless they contribute to watch and session time. Anything that kills the viewer session should be avoided like the plague, ie don't take viewers off Yt to social media.

^ This. As much as SEO is important, I feel a lot of people obsess way too much over it rather than focusing on improving content to extend retention/viewer session. SEO is only for that initial discoverability but a user's experience with your content highly affects how much you'll keep getting recommended.

That said, I also want to mention the fact that while TubeBuddy is a great tool for figuring out the competition and search volume of the ads plus giving a score based on that, it only bases its rankings on those two factors. It doesn't take into account other contextual factors of your channel or the YouTube platform. In this case, it can tell you that a keyword is good but it can't tell you whether using such a keyword is against Terms of Service. You need to exercise some of your own discretion before choosing to use certain tags.

 

[The NotARubicon!]

.... a lot of people obsess way too much over it rather than focusing on improving content to extend retention/viewer session...

^^That!
I come from the website/Google Search SEO world and soooo many people get all hung up on SEO'ing and all the other stuff, that they forget that all of the SEO in the world wont make up for krappy content.