YouTube is Very Fair. Stop Complaining.

[TZJINZO]

I'm at work right now. I'll respond properly when I'm home. I'm going to talk about SEO's and how I actually think this thumbnail and also tagging is also (near) absolute nonsense. As for a deeper insight or whatever, I can give you all some numbers if you wish. However, as for the original post, I was lazy and didn't want to write a massive essay to begin with.

See you all in a bit.

 

[Lightsen]

True, not directly but indirectly right? I'm no expert on this stuff but to be picked up on homepage promotion you would need to build authority first right? Either because of external factors promoting your video, you appearing in loads of searches, you being promoted in suggested videos, etc. All of it builds your authority and it's being used to get you promoted more into search, suggested and browse features which influences your views, subs, retention, etc and adjusts your authority accordingly.

While we can't control suggested and browse features, we can control search (SEO) to build up authority which positively impacts suggested and browse feature promotion. We can control subs and views by e.g. external sources, adwords promotion, playlists or posting on people's YT channel (incl Sub4Sub) to improve authority in those areas but if done wrong you will lose authority on e.g. retention.

well said, SEO is definitely extremely important, especially for smaller channels

 

[TZJINZO]

Yep what was said is technically what I have been thinking. But sometimes it makes me doubt it because comparing 2 of my videos of similar length, one has 50% retention the other has 40% retention, the one with the 40% retention is getting 6x more views per day compared to the one with the higher retention. Is it because it has been up longer? There are others like that in my video collection as well.

A while back someone showed a graph of what minimum retention for what certain length of videos was, it looked like an exponential decay graph if I remember correctly. Dunno if the number is still relevant because of how the algorithm is slowly changing and getting improved.

It said something like, 80% for 2 minutes, 50% for 5 minutes, 30% for 10 minutes(?) I honestly don't remember other than the ones below 5 minutes because it was almost a straight horizontal line when it reached 20+ minutes.

Anyways, it would be awesome if we know exactly what's the minimum percentage retention is for the length of the video. If anything, its like a goal people could aim for and could be a good indication that things needs to be changed.

Ok so there is a critical threshold of viewtime and retention combination you have to reach before YouTube will consistently recommend your video, and promote through browse features (homepage). I find this number to be reliably to be around 10,000 minutes of viewtime. Any less than that and no reliable results. But, it needs to be coupled with high retention for its video duration as well. 10,000 minutes on it's own is meaningless. For example, if you have a 16 minute video with 10,000 minutes viewed, and 50% retention, this is the sort of videos YouTube will promote.

FYI, 30% retention for a 10 minute video is poor. At 10 minutes you should be looking for 55-60% retention or you will unlikely be promoted. This threshold is also competed vs other YouTubers making similar content so it varies slightly but not massively due to content.

 

[KidsCorner]

10.000 minutes of viewtime per video or channel? And per what timeframe, a day, 7 dsys, 28 days?

 

[TZJINZO]

I agree but even with your degree, you basically said the obvious that I think everyone should already know in this place. Retention rate and view time, what's the difference? You explained two things that are the same in two different ways lol. View time of 5 minutes on a 10 minute video is the same as retention rate....so yeah, your degree stumped you there man LOL. Big channels have the cream of the crop when it comes to where they place their videos, regardless of tags or not why?

Because 1. REVENUE, they bring in the most revenue and only YouTube knows this, and so they place their video on TOP always. No one understands YouTube's algorithm exactly but it's obviously that BIG CHANNELS, with HUGE SUBS, obviously will have more retention time and they will inevitable always stay on the top.

2. Retention rate / view time = REVENUE - everything goes back to revenue, YouTube can care less about "tags" and s**t they really just want the big boys to stay there and make them money, tags really only matter to the other 90% of YouTube that are the smaller channels and then place them secondary, you can't compare anyone with the bigger channels because they get top priority no matter what unless they stop making that $$$ for them.

For those who don't know all this, thanks for explaining it to them but otherwise, it's pretty self explanatory I was hoping for a deeper insight.

No, it's not obvious at all. Retention and view time are completely different as I described in OP. If you have high view time, but low retention, it still means your video is terrible and will not be promoted. If you have high retention for a video, but no views, your video will also not be promoted. Sorry but if you create a video that no one is interested in searching or clicking, then it also, does not deserve to be promoted.

Big channel don't care about thumbnails, titles, or tags because their subscribers, and the people recommended their videos have high retention and view time, so it will be promoted regardless of tag.

Sorry but bigger channels have higher subs and retention videos because they make good videos. If the videos were rubbish they would have low retention.[DOUBLEPOST=1473096621,1473096008][/DOUBLEPOST]

10.000 minutes of viewtime per video or channel? And per what timeframe, a day, 7 dsys, 28 days?

I am in the process of editing OP. Sorry my mouse is messed up at work on Macbook and I can't scroll properly. The period is less than 7 days as I will explain in OP. I updated about view sources as well. External and advertisements aren't weighted as much.

 

[XXLRay]

I am TC and YouTube certified for audience growth. From all I know YouTube evaluated each video separately. So there is no need to delete your bad performing videos. If you see channels being promoted well than it's only because their videos draw great watch time from their subscribers.

 

[TZJINZO]

I am TC and YouTube certified for audience growth. From all I know YouTube evaluated each video separately. So there is no need to delete your bad performing videos. If you see channels being promoted well than it's only because their videos draw great watch time from their subscribers.

Do you refer to channel promotion? I am referring to video promotion. The vast majority of subs come from video promotion and not channel promotion. Could you give specific examples?[DOUBLEPOST=1473097065,1473096962][/DOUBLEPOST]

I agree with all points. But the fact is YOUTUBE is populated with lot of videos that hardly our videos get recognition. Even after improving all the aspects of our channel, if we still don't grow, that means something is wrong with the system. There are many other youtubers who don't have even a quality of sharing their content and they get away with the views. They do an AD CAMPAIGN to get promoted straight away.

Updated OP to reflect this. Ad campaigns drive down retention and is very damning for a channel.

I disagree. Looking at your channel, could you quote me a few retention rates for your recent videos?[DOUBLEPOST=1473097135][/DOUBLEPOST]

Your analysis is correct but your conclusions are somewhat wrong.
YouTube has the fairness of broken slot machine which all long time users know how to "tickle" so it can give them the "right result" but almost all new users just lose their time and money with it unless they are lucky enough to stumble upon the "magic trick".
This is actually due to the imperfections of their algorithm (you like so much) coupled with some other purely human factors (no time to go into details).
But as I said - your analysis in general is quite good.

Could you give some specific examples. Otherwise I won't be able to reply to this. How did they get lucky? I updated OP with some numbers to explain this better.

 

[XXLRay]

Do you refer to channel promotion? I am referring to video promotion.

I am referring to you stating

If you have a poor retention rate on a video, delete it immediately. It will put your channel in the red as I will explain in point three.

From all I know the YouTube algorithm does not take into account if other videos on the channel perform bad.

 

[TZJINZO]

well said, SEO is definitely extremely important, especially for smaller channels

Updated to explain SEOs. View OP.[DOUBLEPOST=1473097899,1473097831][/DOUBLEPOST]

I am referring to you stating

From all I know the YouTube algorithm does not take into account if other videos on the channel perform bad.

I understand, but could you give a specific example? You are saying that if you have 100 bad videos with 1% retention rate and 100k views each your future videos are not affected by this? Sorry this is simply untrue.[DOUBLEPOST=1473098159][/DOUBLEPOST]

while you make some good and valid points. you don't fully understand how the algorithm works, no one does fully, you can't work it out in 2 months, thats quite laughable no matter good your education, youtube keeps a lot of it secret for a reason, so people son't find the loopholes and all the content becomes the same recycled s***e because that works well. far more inteligent people that us have spend careers working on this stuff

you also missed a MASSIVE point regarding youtube and how they value channels. and that is bringing people onto youtube. and starting them on a watch session. by that i mean youtube really values any channel that can get someone to log on to youtube to watch the video and then stay on youtube and watch more videos (not just your own videos, anyones)

a example would be if i tweeted about my latest video on twitter, random guy sees my tweet, click it, goes to watch my video, then goes on to click a few random suggested videos and spends a couple of hours on youtube. thats gold right there. your attracting people to the platform (this is not my research, this is research done by experts over the course of years) session watch time is huge for youtube

as for likes and dislikes. your wrong about that. getting likes and dislikes still shows engagement, its not massively important but every little helps. its not as powerful as say a comment but it still helps

as i said there is some really useful stuff in your post that people should learn, i think you could have written it better, like your top tips for how to grow on youtube, instead of a look at me, i am more intelligent that you, now bow down to my greatness and let me tell you exactly how it is

one final point, your point about youtube being 100% fair, this is a weird discussion, some people see fair as "if i make a identical video to pewdiepie, same title, thumb, tags, same retention etc, all that good stuff, then i should rank (in the search) the same as pewdiepie". where other might say its fair that he ranks much higher because he has proved that his videos do well (even though they are identical in every way)

some people might consider it not fair that some unknown could create a fantastic amazing video, better than 99.9% of other youtube videos but because he sucks at SEO or Thumbnails etc, it never gets found, as afterall, youtube should be about the content right?

i don't think its got anything to do with what you or anyone considers fair. i think its a case of "this is how youtube works"

Sorry, with data mining I respectfully disagree. You can know -exactly- how YouTube works. Likes and dislikes do -nothing- to promote your channel on search and recommended, that is what I meant. It doesn't, and I maintain that stance.

Session time I will talk about too, updated OP.

I updated to explain SEOs. If you really believe this post was me showing off my intelligence then no, I have better things to be doing. I have no interest in comparing who has a bigger ego online to strangers, this is not the point of this post.[DOUBLEPOST=1473098734][/DOUBLEPOST]

one final point, your point about youtube being 100% fair, this is a weird discussion, some people see fair as "if i make a identical video to pewdiepie, same title, thumb, tags, same retention etc, all that good stuff, then i should rank (in the search) the same as pewdiepie". where other might say its fair that he ranks much higher because he has proved that his videos do well (even though they are identical in every way)

some people might consider it not fair that some unknown could create a fantastic amazing video, better than 99.9% of other youtube videos but because he sucks at SEO or Thumbnails etc, it never gets found, as afterall, youtube should be about the content right?

Sorry but if you just created an identical video to pewdiepie you just copied his video and ripped him off? How is that fair, what? This is like saying if I rip off game of thrones and make a show that is identical every way it should be as popular. Do I need to even make a rebuttal on this?

 

[XXLRay]

could you give a specific example?

I can't link a certain channel. Could you? Or do you mean the certification course material? That's not available for the public.

You are saying that if you have 100 bad videos with 1% retention rate and 100k views each your future videos are not affected by this?

That's what I have been told.

Sorry this is simply untrue.

In that case YouTube was blatantly lying to me.