YouTube SEO has changed: How to Do it Right

9 replies
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#changed #seo #youtube
  • Profile picture of the author CyberAlien
    Is there any documentation that you've seen about if a lot of people watch a video but close it 10% of the way through hurting your ranking? It would make sense for that to hurt your ranking since it would appear like a lot of people aren't interested in it or that the title's misleading.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Thio
      Originally Posted by Chase Watts View Post

      Is there any documentation that you've seen about if a lot of people watch a video but close it 10% of the way through hurting your ranking? It would make sense for that to hurt your ranking since it would appear like a lot of people aren't interested in it or that the title's misleading.
      Here's a YouTube blog post that talks about the move to watch time: YouTube Creator Blog: YouTube Now: Why We Focus on Watch Time

      They make it clear that watch time is prioritized over views. So if there's a video that has more views but no retention, it will not be ranked better than a video with fewer views but higher retention.
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      • Profile picture of the author smodha
        Originally Posted by Joe Thio View Post

        Here's a YouTube blog post that talks about the move to watch time: YouTube Creator Blog: YouTube Now: Why We Focus on Watch Time

        They make it clear that watch time is prioritized over views. So if there's a video that has more views but no retention, it will not be ranked better than a video with fewer views but higher retention.
        That's exactly my point. You wouldn't get punished with low Audience Retention because YT/Google is prioritizing videos with high retention. Low quality videos would be punished down the SERPs by better videos so it kinda takes care of itself.
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        • Profile picture of the author davidbatchelor
          So now that we know it is all about views, any suggestions on ways to increase those? Perhaps fiverr??
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    • Profile picture of the author smodha
      Originally Posted by Chase Watts View Post

      Is there any documentation that you've seen about if a lot of people watch a video but close it 10% of the way through hurting your ranking? It would make sense for that to hurt your ranking since it would appear like a lot of people aren't interested in it or that the title's misleading.
      I doubt that would be possible because you can easily tank your competition with "negative views" (spam your competitors with robot views). This industry would thrive too.

      I suspect that YT/Google rewards videos with higher Audience Retention so if your video only had a retention of 10%, you wouldn't rank as highly compared to a video that has 80% retention. Common sense would tell you that 80% retention = relevant and valuable content.
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  • Profile picture of the author zpoll92
    Great share! I'm sure it will help some newcomers to get their video to the top rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author ReferralCandy
    This makes a lot of sense. It's similar to what Rand Fishkin tweeted the other day:

    Myth: Google wants to rank the site with the most links. Reality: They want to rank the site that best serves searchers.
    At the end of the day, SEO tactics need to be in service of content that provides good value, whether it's a particularly insightful blog post, a unique value proposition for an online retailer or a kickass Youtube video of adorable cats kissing each other.

    Thanks for taking the time out to make this video, Joe.
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    • Profile picture of the author kushmanmediallc
      To promote videos, Tumblr, digg, buzzfeed, and most importantly reddit are good places to promote vids.

      To add to what Joe said, Youtube is rewarding (finally) length, because they can't make money off of dumb short home videos, but want long form content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Roberts
    Be careful with High retention views on Fiverr. I just bought some advertised as 100% retention from a top-rated seller and when I checked they were <20%. I queried it and was told "Oh, we changed that - don't worry it's more important now to have US-based views than high retention"
    Right.
    But not too unhappy - my vid is ranking on page 1 after a couple of days because of all the other stuff I did.
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