- Yes.
We're finally gonna get an answer to this.
Watch time versus audience retention.
Go!
- [Man] VidIQ
- [Woman] VidIQ
- [Man] VodIQ.com
- Sometimes all you want in life is a little bit
of communication and transparency.
And to be fair, YouTube are improving this,
especially as we move into 2019.
But when it comes to the algorithm
or anything behind the scenes,
YouTube are always a little coy
in their responses, if you get any.
However, that is starting to change, as well.
In a recent Q and A session on the YouTube Community pages,
the Recommendations Team came on
to answer some of your questions.
I'll leave a link in the video description
if you want to read the whole page,
which is absolutely fascinating,
but I wanted to pick out
some of the more intriguing ones
which might be helpful
to you as video creators.
So let's take a look.
The first question gets right to the heart
of a matter of the type of things we need answering.
"I don't set certain words as tags
"if those words already appear
"in the title or description.
"Should I set them as tags,
"even though those words appear
"in the titles and the description?"
And YouTube's very straight answer on this is,
"No.
"Focus on the thumbnail, title,
"and description and don't worry too much about tags."
YouTube have been hinting at this
for the last couple of years,
that tags simply don't matter anymore.
And I can completely accept that as a video creator.
The questions I would put to YouTube is,
Well, why don't you just get rid of them?
And what do they actually do now?
And the reason I ask this is because YouTube
still uses tags on their new videos,
so they must have some value, and you're investing some time
into video tags, so what's the purpose of them?
If you've done the keyword research,
which is important for titles and descriptions,
adding a tag should be a mere formality
that VidIQ Boost can help you do,
with automatic suggestions
that you can add with a single click of the button.
"After selecting not interested
"on several videos from a channel
"I don't subscribe to,
"why does that channel pop up in my recommended?
"I don't like the channel
"and don't want recommendations for them."
Interesting question.
YouTube's answer is,
"While we do consider how many videos from a channel
"you've marked as not interested,
"we don't have any hard rules
"that will stop all recommendations
"from a channel based on a certain number
"of marked videos.
"In order to prevent all videos
"from a channel appearing in your recommendations,
"you need to tap the Tell Us Why
"after the marking the video as Not Interested,
"and then select Not Interested In This Channel.
"We are exploring improvements to make this easier."
Sounds like there's a war being waged
between the YouTube recommendation engine
and your personal preferences.
I think we'll all agree that, when we tap Not Interested,
it means we don't wanna see that channel at all.
But the only way to really interpret that
from a computer's point of view
os to ban that channel from that viewer,
and do you really want to do that
from a recommendation point of view?
Interesting one to think about.
"Does the quality
"of the video resolution matter during recommendations?"
YouTube's answer,
"Only if it matters to the viewer
"in terms of how much it satisfies them."
So I think this kind of debunks a myth,
from an algorithm point of view,
that 4K videos matter on YouTube.
YouTube are basically saying a viewer may have a preference
to watch 4K videos, that's why you can see the symbol
and filter by that on search.
But it doesn't necessarily mean
that it's gonna go to the top
of the search rankings.
Some channels will pride themselves
on the quality of their content.
For example, MKBHD, in the technology sector,
produces videos at a super high resolution,
and that helps viewers gravitate towards his content.
You're probably not aware of this,
but we tried 4K content
for a couple of months
and it made absolutely no difference
to the amount of times our content was being recommended.
All right, and here's a big one.
I wonder how my audience retention
is gonna be affected by this?
"What has changed in the algorithm
"and what tips do you have to get videos recommended?
"Do I work on the title more, the thumbnail, the tags?
"What do I need to focus on?"
"The algorithms,"
Algorithms?
So there's more than one/
Hmm.
Didn't know that.
"change constantly based on billions of bits
"of audience feedback.
"What doesn't change is our principles,
"which include delivering recommendations
"most likely to satisfy the audience
"and keep them coming back to YouTube over the long term.
"Our algorithms listen to the audience,
"and so we recommend that you do the same.
"Thumbnails and titles are the primary sources
"of information viewers see when deciding
"which videos to watch,
"and therefore, have a lot of impact
"on how a recommendation impression converts to a view.
"Then the video itself has to deliver
"on the promise of the title and thumbnail
"to invest the viewer in watching more videos
"from your channel.
"Once you convert a viewer to watch,
"make sure that it is a great video that they will enjoy.
"Viewers don't see tags and we have found them to be
"of limited value in understanding which viewers
"are likely to be interested in watching a video.
"A good rule of thumb is to focus
"on what the viewer sees the most,
"and that is the thumbnail and the title,
"and of course the video itself.
"If you have to pick only one thing to focus on,
"it would be creating the content that satisfies viewers
"and keeps them coming back."
So a second mention there of tags not being that important,
and a general consensus that the most important
things are the title and the thumbnail to attract the viewer
into your content and then keeping them on the content.
To analyze this sort of stuff, you want to be looking
at the click-through rate and the average v-duration
or watch time on your videos.
And we just made a massive beginners guide on that topic
right over here.
Go on, watch it.
It's well worth it.
"Does editing a title, description, or thumbnail
"after uploading affect how much a video is recommended?"
This question is based on the assumption that,
in the past, if you changed important parts
of your meta data, like the title,
then YouTube may reindex your video.
In other words, resetting all of the potential value
and authority it has in search rankings.
So this is YouTube's answer now.
"It depends on whether the updates
"make them better for the viewer, worse, or about the same.
"There is no disadvantage in the system related
"to updating these.
"So if you think you have an improvement,
"give it a try."
So to me, it sounds like YouTube
is placing the responsibility of a video's success
purely in the hands of the viewer,
and whether or not they like that thumbnail and title.
Now we ourselves have made some subtle changes on videos.
For example, we ranked number one
for How to Start a Gaming Channel on YouTube.
We made a couple of changes, and it still ranked number one.
So we couldn't see any reset, so to speak.
So if you want to start playing about
with your titles, descriptions, and thumbnails,
YouTube, not us, YouTube is giving you permission to do so.
All I can say is proceed with caution.
If you have a video that is exceeding above expectations
for your normal content, you've probably already done
the things right that you need to do.
This is an interesting one.
"Why are so many videos in recommended
"from my subscribed channels?
"I have those in my subscriptions.
"I don't want them recommended too.
"They're taking up space when they could be used
"for other videos which are related to what I like and watch
"but are from channels which I do not follow."
And the YouTube response is,
"We aim to reach viewers with videos
"they are interested in watching wherever they happen to be.
"And our home feed is designed
"to bring whatever is most engaging and satisfying to you
"front and center, whether you're subscribed to or not.
"We have found that some viewers prefer their home page
"to be only familiar content from subscriptions,
"while others want the opposite.
"We aim to give each viewer what they like.
"And your feedback is helpful in reminding us
"that we either need to do a better job at learning that,
"or give you the ability to tell us in the product."
Now a lot of people have been asking
about this one recently.
It's a great question.
"Over the last year, my channel has had
"a nice growth on YouTube's search,
"but gets less and less on suggested video views.
"How can I improve my odds of being suggested?"
Historically, as you channel started to build momentum,
you'll get a lot of views from suggested videos,
those videos down the right-hand side on the desktop,
or below the video on a mobile device.
But more and more we've been seeing that traffic source
diminish, and more views seem to come from browse features
which is a lot more vague to the video creator
analyzing the success of their content.
And I have to say, YouTube's answer on this
is quite vague too.
"Suggested videos are recommendations on the watch page
"that viewers may be interested in watching next.
"These videos include personalized recommendations
"based on the viewer's previous watches,
"and the videos that are topically related.
"You may want to consider these tactics
"to increase traffic from suggested.
"At the end of your videos, make strong calls for actions
"to encourage a viewer to watch another video
"in your series.
"Avoid over long endings
"that delay viewers from watching more.
"Consider using playlists, links, cards and endscreens
"to promote another video.
"And develop a series or show of videos
"that are organically connected."
So I don't think that answers the question
of a perceived change in the way
that suggested videos work on YouTube.
What they're saying
is that you should connect your videos
with more of your video content
so that you get more session watch time,
which we completely understand.
But I think the question was
how do we connect our videos to other channels' videos
so we get all of that crossover connectivity in views?
"What specific number threshold and/or percentages
"does YouTube value or require for a video
"to be recommended more?
"Is audience retention more important or watch time?
'For example, a 15 minute with five minutes watch time
"at 33% retention, versus a four minute video
"with three minutes watch time, 75% retention.
"What should I be paying attention to more in my analytics
"to duplicate for further success?"
Yes.
We're finally going to get an answer to this.
Watch time versus audience retention.
Go.
"There is no magic number that the audience
"is looking for when they choose a video."
Oh.
"There are no magic numbers or minutes or percentage
"our system optimizes for.
"More is better.
"As for the importance
"of absolute versus relative watch time,
"it varies by surface
"for example, Search, Home, Up Next, etc.,
"and changes over time.
"Our advice would be to find a good balance.
"Use your audience retention reports
"in YouTube analytics and if you see
"viewers are abandoning at a certain point,
"try to figure out what in your video
"might have led them to that.
"And if viewers are watching the whole way
"through your video, you have probably room
"to experiment with longer-form content."
Hmmm.
I think YouTube are basically saying.
(dramatic music)
There were some fantastic questions there,
and some relatively good answers from YouTube.
Here's how I would summarize this.
YouTube are trying to tell the video creators
who ask these questions to not think so much
about the algorithm, and think about the viewer,
the audience, the mindset of those people,
not the technicalities and the numbers
of a computer-generated learning machine.
But I think what the Recommendation Team
who answered these questions from YouTube
can't fully appreciate,
is that the video creators are in the trenches
every day on YouTube.
And they see some weird and wacky things going on
with their analytics.
That's why they're asking questions such as,
do tags still matter, and whether audience retention
is more important than watch time.
The Recommendation Team probably can't give
specific answers to specific questions
because first of all, they're likely not video creators,
so they're not impacted by these questions
every single day.
And maybe they don't know the specific answers
because it is controlled by the algorithms.
They can guide where it's going to go with principles,
but every day the algorithm is learning
and making subtle modifications
to how it recommends content on YouTube.
We of course find all of this absolutely fascinating.
And I do wanna say thank you very much
to the YouTube Recommendation Team
for opening themselves up to these questions
and trying to answer them,
I'm sure, as honestly and truthfully as possible.
We're love to know what you think
about all of the answers to all of these questions.
Let us know in the comments below.
As I said earlier, there's a lot more in the Q&A session
on the YouTube community page.
I'll leave a link in the description.
We've got awesome VidIQ videos both here and here.
We will see you on either of those videos right now.
Enjoy the rest of your video-making day.