As a creator, you've probably asked yourself
questions like, "How does YouTube choose what videos to promote?"
"Does getting a yellow icon impact my video discovery?"
"And how important are tags?"
In this video we'll walk you through all those questions
and more about YouTube's search and discovery system
and give you some video discovery tips.
Let's dive in.
First, how does YouTube choose what videos to promote?
Whether it's on the YouTube homepage search or suggested
YouTube's recommendation system actually finds videos for viewers
rather than viewers for videos.
Videos don't get pushed out or promoted by the algorithm,
but rather pulled for each user when they visit YouTube.
The goal of the search and discovery system
is to match each viewer
with the videos they're most likely to watch and enjoy.
So every viewer's recommendations will look a little bit different.
Videos are ranked based on hundreds of signals
that largely fall under two categories:
Viewer Personalization and Video Performance.
Viewer personalization is based on signals
about a given user's preferences
such as what videos they choose to watch,
what videos they ignore, what videos they dismiss,
how often someone watches a channel, or topic, and much more.
Our systems also consider video performance,
which is how well the content engaged viewers
when it was offered to them.
For example, do viewers choose to watch the video,
ignore it, or click not interested?
If they choose to watch it,
how long and how much of the video do they watch?
Here our system views the videos average view duration,
and average percentage viewed as signals to inform ranking.
And finally, did the viewer enjoy the video?
We measure satisfaction using a variety of signals
such as user surveys and likes.
Using these signals
helps our systems narrow down the best set of videos
to offer each viewer.
Creators often asked
what kind of videos does the algorithm like best,
but our systems have no opinion about what type of video you make
and don't favor any particular format.
Rather they try to follow the audience.
So instead of worrying about being an expert in algorithms or analytics,
focus on knowing your audience and what they like.
Next, does changing a video's title or thumbnail
re-rank the video in the algorithm?
Yes, it can.
But it's only because our systems are responding
to how viewers are interacting with your video differently,
rather than the act of changing the video title or thumbnail.
When your video looks different to viewers,
it changes how viewers interact with it when it's offered to them.
Changing your video title and thumbnail
can be an effective way to get more views.
But if your video's already doing well, don't change what's working.
If one of my videos underperforms, is that going to hurt my channel?
What matters is how viewers respond to each video
when it's recommended to them.
Our systems rely more on video and audience level signals
to decide which videos are the best recommendations
for your audience.
What can lead to a decline in overall channel views
is people's interest changing over time,
or when viewers stop watching most of your videos
when they're recommended to them.
Does monetization status like the yellow icon
impact my video discovery?
No. Our search and recommendation system
doesn't know which videos are monetized and which are not.
We focus on recommending videos your audience will find satisfying
regardless of whether they're monetized.
But if your video contains racy, violent or other graphic content,
it could be demonetized as it's not suitable for all advertisers.
It may also not be recommended to as many viewers
because it's not appropriate for all audiences.
Do I need to upload daily or at least once a week?
No. We've done analyses over the years
and find that growth in views across uploads
is not correlated with time between uploads.
Many creators have established
reliable connections with their audience
through quality over quantity.
We encourage you to take care of yourself to prevent burnout,
which is important for your audience and your well-being.
Why are my views lower than my subscriber count?
The number of people subscribed to your channel doesn't represent
the number of viewers choosing to watch your videos.
On average viewers subscribe to dozens of channels
and may not return for every new upload
for every channel they're subscribed to.
It's also common for viewers
to be subscribed to channels they no longer watch.
So, instead, focus on the audiences actually watching your content
using YouTube Analytics,
which can help you find out who's watching and what's working well or not.
What other factors influence how people see my videos?
There are three major factors
that explain where your audience is coming from.
Topic Interest, Competition, and Seasonality.
Topic Interest is how many people worldwide are interested in
and watching videos about a given topic.
Some topics have more broad appeal than others.
And that appeal can change over time
as certain subjects become more or less popular.
Google Trends is a tool you can use
to see how the world's interest is changing over time.
And you can even filter down to YouTube search interest.
Just go to trends.google.com.
Next - Competition.
YouTube systems have to sort through
and rank all videos a viewer might be most willing to watch.
Even if you have great performance and metrics on your video,
you may get fewer impressions
if videos from other channels or creators
are performing even better.
And finally - Seasonality.
YouTube traffic can change during different times of the year.
Think about your audience like which country they live in,
or what's going on in their lives,
and expect fluctuations in viewership during major holidays.
And finally, how important are tags?
Well, not very important.
Tags are mainly used to help correct for common spelling mistakes.
For example, YouTube versus UTube versus You Tube.
Remember, YouTube systems are personalized to each viewer
and recommend content based on audience interests.
They're also influenced by a video's performance and engagement
and external factors that influence what people are interested in over time.
Focus on what your audience likes.
If you do that, and people watch, then the recommendations will follow.
For more information on YouTube's recommendation system
and video discovery tips, check out the resources linked below.
Thanks for watching.