YouTube's algorithm(s) makes my head hurt...

[Blas]

I type in "Scribblenauts Unlimited part 1", and within the first ten, one for pewdiepie shows up, and it's not even part 1, it's part 3. I don't get it. I get that it has the words "Scribblenauts", "Unlimited", and "part" in it, and if it's searching by relevance, which it is, that much makes sense, but that's about it.

Sorry, I just needed to rant.

 

[markkaz]

His videos will rank higher because he has better 'watch time'. Because more hours are spent watching his videos, that tells Google that viewers enjoy his videos.

 

[Blas]

His videos will rank higher because he has better 'watch time'. Because more hours are spent watching his videos, that tells Google that viewers enjoy his videos.

Not really sure if my head should hurt more, or less now lol. I know tags area a major factor, but now they seem...a little less useful. Or maybe just more useful for smaller channels.

 

[markkaz]

Correct. Tags are less important. While you definitely want to use the correct tags, your time would be well spent getting people to watch more of your videos for longer periods of time.

 

[WolfWraith]

Not really sure if my head should hurt more, or less now lol. I know tags area a major factor, but now they seem...a little less useful. Or maybe just more useful for smaller channels.

All you need to know is the most important thing to rank, is retention. In fact you'll notice PewDiePie doesn't bother with SEO for his videos because his viewer retention is so high YouTube ranks them higher. He only needs a title and that's about it. For smaller channels like us, retention is still a must. I still don't understand the tag system in YouTube though. YouTube had to do this to stop misleading titles, tags, descriptions, interactions and thumbnails, hence why retention is worth way more.

 

[Crown]

I'm seeing Pewdiepie's PART ONE as the top result anyway so the results seem relevant.

 

[Blas]

All you need to know is the most important thing to rank, is retention. In fact you'll notice PewDiePie doesn't bother with SEO for his videos because his viewer retention is so high YouTube ranks them higher. He only needs a title and that's about it. For smaller channels like us, retention is still a must. I still don't understand the tag system in YouTube though. YouTube had to do this to stop misleading titles, tags, descriptions, interactions and thumbnails, hence why retention is worth way more.

Yea, I noticed his only tag was "nyancat" on that particular video lol.

I'm seeing Pewdiepie's PART ONE as the top result anyway so the results seem relevant.

My idea of relevance is if I search for something (game + part one), I would expect at the very least the first page to only be just part one videos of whatever game I was searching for. You're right about Pewdiepie's part one being the top result, and that's fine and all considering the search was for part one videos on a specific game, I just didn't know that watch time also played a huge factor in what YouTube considers "relevant" to a search.

Another thing I noticed is that a few gamers out there (maybe literally just a few, or a lot, I didn't search too far into it since I was tired) tend to leave the tags from a part one video in the other parts that follow. For example, one guy's walkthrough of a game had X number of videos, and regardless of which video I was watching on his channel on that particular game, all the tags where still the same, so part eight would have the part one tag still in it, and no tag for part eight. Is that something that's frowned upon, or should I just use all the best tags I can for my part one videos and never change them throughout the X amount of videos it takes me to finish a walkthrough?

 

[WolfWraith]

Yea, I noticed his only tag was "nyancat" on that particular video lol.
My idea of relevance is if I search for something (game + part one), I would expect at the very least the first page to only be just part one videos of whatever game I was searching for. You're right about Pewdiepie's part one being the top result, and that's fine and all considering the search was for part one videos on a specific game, I just didn't know that watch time also played a huge factor in what YouTube considers "relevant" to a search.
Another thing I noticed is that a few gamers out there (maybe literally just a few, or a lot, I didn't search too far into it since I was tired) tend to leave the tags from a part one video in the other parts that follow. For example, one guy's walkthrough of a game had X number of videos, and regardless of which video I was watching on his channel on that particular game, all the tags where still the same, so part eight would have the part one tag still in it, and no tag for part eight. Is that something that's frowned upon, or should I just use all the best tags I can for my part one videos and never change them throughout the X amount of videos it takes me to finish a walkthrough?

Generally I do the samething because it's a pain to edit tags for multiple videos. I have my tags copied into a document, but I got rid of the part 1 thing altogether later on. It's basically just easier to copy and paste the stuff xD It's not frowned upon because it doesn't overly effect the video that much. I generally don't search for parts of playthroughs I generally search gameplay so do most people. You want to target tags that are likely to be searched more or more unique.