Youtube Suggested Video Algorithm

[mohamed refeat]

woow thanks so much for sharing this important information

how much best Audience retention Average .. for your video's let you get good place in search and YouTube suggest in other video

 

[azngyl1931]

Confirmed. The most important thing is "relative audience retention". Don't worry so much about video length. Wether you're putting out 2, 4, or 6 minutes videos, what will have you show up in suggested is having a higher relative audience retention than other videos in the same category.[DOUBLEPOST=1445260793,1445260654][/DOUBLEPOST]
This does matter but it's a tiny part of the algorithm. Let's say I had a 3 minute video. I'd rather have an average view time of 2:40 seconds with no comments than an average view time of 2:35 seconds with tons of comments. That said, if audience retention is the same on two videos the number of engagements will cause that more "engaged" video to be promoted.

Hi Youtuber1978
I've been reading some of your posts and you seem very knowledgeable. What do you think about commenting on other videos in niche? Does this benefit your views at all?
Regarding Relative Audience Retention, how can we improve that? It's confusing to read. Some parts of my videos are lower and some parts are average. What should we be looking for and how do we improve it?
Thanks

 

[YouTuber1978]

Hi Youtuber1978
I've been reading some of your posts and you seem very knowledgeable. What do you think about commenting on other videos in niche? Does this benefit your views at all?
Regarding Relative Audience Retention, how can we improve that? It's confusing to read. Some parts of my videos are lower and some parts are average. What should we be looking for and how do we improve it?
Thanks

The only way to improve audience retention is to make better videos. I know that's kinda generic advice. But audience retention is simply how long people watch before clicking off. There's a few things you can do that will help immediately. - Get rid of intro's. Shorten outro's etc. Other than that it's just improving as a video creator. I'm not a big believer that comments hurt or help. Just don't spam people. If you're gonna comment on someone's video actually watch it and then say something nice about their video. Not - hey I watched your video, can you check out mine or something. Hope that helps.

 

[azngyl1931]

The only way to improve audience retention is to make better videos. I know that's kinda generic advice. But audience retention is simply how long people watch before clicking off. There's a few things you can do that will help immediately. - Get rid of intro's. Shorten outro's etc. Other than that it's just improving as a video creator. I'm not a big believer that comments hurt or help. Just don't spam people. If you're gonna comment on someone's video actually watch it and then say something nice about their video. Not - hey I watched your video, can you check out mine or something. Hope that helps.

Hi there! You're right. I never spam and I genuinely watch a video before I comment. I'm a big believer of integrity so anything black hat, backdoors etc. makes me believe it is fraud. Since YouTube is an advertiser paid platform based on algorithms, watch time etc. I don't think it's fair to cheat your way into the system by doing something wrong. I also don't believe it's fair to lower other you tubers watch time either.

The only thing that confuses me on retention would be the length. I have some videos that are longer but have short retention. My first channel has longer videos but has lower retention. My other channel consists of short videos and I have a high retention. For example. If one of my channels has longer videos and it has 29% retention rate with watch time at 2:10. The other channel can have a 50% watch time but have 1 minute. Which one is better? This is what confuses me every time. thanks again!

 

[YouTuber1978]

Hi there! You're right. I never spam and I genuinely watch a video before I comment. I'm a big believer of integrity so anything black hat, backdoors etc. makes me believe it is fraud. Since YouTube is an advertiser paid platform based on algorithms, watch time etc. I don't think it's fair to cheat your way into the system by doing something wrong. I also don't believe it's fair to lower other you tubers watch time either.

The only thing that confuses me on retention would be the length. I have some videos that are longer but have short retention. My first channel has longer videos but has lower retention. My other channel consists of short videos and I have a high retention. For example. If one of my channels has longer videos and it has 29% retention rate with watch time at 2:10. The other channel can have a 50% watch time but have 1 minute. Which one is better? This is what confuses me every time. thanks again!

I don't know that there's a right answer to your question. The shorter a video is the higher the % watched should be. But where that magic sweet spot is I'm not sure. I have my theories but they're based on my experience not anything I've seen YouTube/Google put out.

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

The only way to improve audience retention is to make better videos.

Of course, but that isn't necessarily the only way to improve your ranking with the suggested video algorithm, although it is necessary.

If you're gonna comment on someone's video actually watch it and then say something nice about their video. Not - hey I watched your video, can you check out mine

I keep pretty careful track of what I was talking about in my previous post. On those videos where I suddenly noticed my videos in their suggested section, the comments i made were part of long discussion threads and never mentioned my channel at all. The original comment I made also always had a lot of thumbs up.

I'm not saying I'm 100% sure there is a correlation, but it's happened enough times to rule out coincidence, in my opinion. Retention (and specifically, according to Youtube, videos that lead to a longer viewing session - the two are not always mutually exclusive) may be the most important factor to the algorithm, but it's not the only factor.