Tarmack
Rhetorical Porcupine
You're awfully agressive on a very minor point in a post. I don't recall arguing that anyone did state it was the only stat that mattered. It is however relevant information given the topic of conversation.
SEO Tip - Click-through Rate
- Thread starter DavidTurnbull
- Start date
You're awfully agressive on a very minor point in a post. I don't recall arguing that anyone did state it was the only stat that mattered. It is however relevant information given the topic of conversation.
Philip Zeplin
Loving YTtalk
Sorry if I came off as aggressive, I don't particularly see how you got that impression (I did little other than point out, that no one was claiming it was the only metric, and that many believe that it does have SOME importance as a metric).
If you never meant to claim anyone said it, or implied it, then why bring it up?
As I said in the post you quoted, I also disagree that it's not a metric of importance. Is it of huge importance? No, probably not. But is it most likely of some importance? Yes, it would make sense that it is. Including CTR as a metric, would help fine tune search results. If, in theory, two videos are 100% the same in every other metric (such as user interaction, retention, bounce rate, and so forth), but one has a much higher CTR than the other, that would indicate that users feel that the one with higher CTR is more relevant to their search query. As such, it should rank higher. It would be pretty silly not to include such a metric, in one form or another.
Tarmack
Rhetorical Porcupine
It is plausible. I suppose my point is primarily that since it is so easy to exploit (boob thumbnails, etc.) that there is little to no liklihood that it is of any major importance. False use of CTR is the exact reason that we have Audience Retention as a major ranking tool now. So I'm sure it's possible they use it to some extent, but not enough to worry about. Improving your CTR via more appealing thumbnails or descriptions is primarily valuable at this point as a gateway if you have the content that the audience is already looking for.
Philip Zeplin
Loving YTtalk
You keep mentioning Audience Retention. I want to point out here, that just because Google/YouTube say they value something, doesn't necessarily mean they do. Google has been caught in lying about their algorithm all the time. YouTube also states that viewer interaction is very important - and while I agree, it's definitely of some importance, if you actually crunch the numbers, you'll find that yet again, it's only a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Now I agree that Audience Retention is definitely of importance, once they had that in place, it would be silly for it NOT to be of some importance, but it's hardly the end-all-be-all. Viewer retention, just like everything else, is just one piece of the puzzle, just like CTR is, just like user engagement is, just like social sharing is, keywords, tags, descriptions, playlists, subscribes driven, etc. etc. etc..
garry firth
I've Got It
the bounce rate
Philip Zeplin
Loving YTtalk
Bounce rate means that someone leaves your site (or in this case, video), without going further into it.
For Google, Bounce Rate means that someone found your site, clicked on it, and then left again from the same page they entered (without going further into your site). A higher Bounce Rate means that many people leave on the entry page, a low bounce rate means that more people click further into your site.
Bounce Rate on YouTube would generally mean that they didn't watch any of your other videos, after watching the first one, and simply went back to the search results (or just simply went back to the search results, without clicking any recommended videos).
Obviously, if people click your video, and then afterwards return to the search results, that means that your video didn't successfully show them what they were searching for - which is a bad thing. Hence, if YouTube takes Bounce Rate into consideration (along with many many other factors), a video with a high Bounce Rate would rank lower. Whereas, if people watch your video, and then afterwards clicks onwards to the rest of your videos, it can generally be considered that they got what they were searching for, hence it should rank higher.
garry firth
I've Got It
VERY INTERESTING thanks,can you find out which videos have a bounce rate/?
Philip Zeplin
Loving YTtalk
All videos, and all websites, have a bounce rate. Having a 0% bounce rate is, in all practicality, impossible.
And no, on YouTube there's no way to check bounce rate. On a website, you can see it through Google Analytics.
EDIT:
I should add, that viewer retention can be a rough indicator of bounce rate. If you see a large drop off in viewer retention early on in a video, it's most likely that people didn't find the video helpful for what they were looking for, and went on to another video, or back to the search results. In this aspect, viewer retention serves many of the same basic uses as bounce rate does.
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