- Hey insiders, it's Rachel here
and I work on YouTube analytics
and YouTube's recommendation system with Todd,
who's also here, you wanna introduce yourself, Todd?
- Hi, I'm Todd, I lead the product team responsible
for the homepage and recommendations across YouTube.
- So today, we're gonna answer
five frequently asked questions
about YouTube's recommendation system,
how it works, and how it may impact your video
and channel performance.
So kicking it off, I actually have a question for you Todd,
this is the question I get from a lot of creators
who are worried that if one
or a few of their videos underperform,
it's gonna hurt their long term channel performance.
So is it true that a few poor videos
can pull down your future video performance.
- I would say, don't worry about our systems,
making some decision about your channel being good overall,
we're always going to be following the audience.
And so if it doesn't matter to the audience
that your last video wasn't
as good as maybe some of your other videos,
it's not gonna matter to us either.
We want each video to get out to the audience
that's gonna watch it and enjoy it.
And we often see that channels produce some great videos
and some videos that aren't as great,
and so we're very careful not to have
all of our recommendations driven
by like channel reputation.
We look at each videos performance.
And so this is what enables some videos to go viral
and other videos not to
when you see variations in your impressions
or in your views,
this is the system listening to the audience,
and when the audience responds well,
we reflect that video level performance.
So unless you're really impacting
how the audience is feeling about your channel,
and whether the audience is going
to stop watching your channel in the future,
I wouldn't worry about variability
or having a few bad videos.
Know that your next upload,
if you produce something
that is really engaging to the audience,
we're gonna wanna get it out there as much as possible.
- Great, so I'm hearing, don't worry too much
if a few videos under performed,
and video level signals maybe really matter.
- Yeah, yeah, I'd say learn as much as you can
based on what feedback you got
on those videos that didn't perform well
but know that you get a fresh start
every time you upload a new video.
So I have a question for you.
If I have a channel,
and I'm uploading a bunch of videos,
is there some sort of limit or, you know,
point where the algorithm just has too many videos
that I've uploaded,
and it's not gonna distribute all of them
to my fans via recommendations or notifications,
is there a limit?
- So no, there's no limit on how many videos
can be recommended to a given viewer
from a channel in a single day.
You can upload as much as you want,
and how much viewers are willing to watch
depends on their individual preferences.
Our recommendation system will
likely continue recommending them
as long as viewers are willing to watch them.
But if you are uploading more videos than usual,
and you start noticing that they're receiving
fewer views per video,
that is an indicator
you may have exhausted your audience
and uploaded too much
that they're not willing to watch.
So that is something to keep in mind
as you experiment with how many videos you upload.
Batch uploads can actually be a really effective strategy
at getting people to watch more.
We've seen some creators
release series like on a single day,
which then gives viewers an opportunity
to watch through them
because they're all available at once.
So it really depends on your channel
and your strategy, keep experimenting.
Now, although there's no limit for recommendations
there is for notifications.
So if you upload more than three videos
in a given 24 hour period,
the notifications limit is that viewers can get a maximum
of three new video notifications per channel
in that 24 hour period.
And that was designed as not to overwhelm viewers
who are more likely
to turn off all notifications from YouTube,
if they get overwhelmed with notifications.
So yes, for notifications there is a limit,
no for recommendations.
Okay, I have a question for you, Todd.
This is from creators
who may have been around on YouTube for a while,
who are worried that
they have a lot of inactive subscribers.
Is that gonna hurt their performance
and should they create a new channel?
- So inactive subscribers
are they gonna hurt your performance?
I think the answer is gonna be probably not,
because if you remember
how we decide about recommendations,
we're looking at each viewer when they come to YouTube,
what do we know about that viewer
and how can we rank the videos such that
the videos that they're most likely to watch
and enjoy are showing up at the top of their homepage
and other recommendations?
And so for a viewer that subscribed to your channel,
let's just say five years ago
and hasn't watched in the past four years,
our system is gonna know that this viewer
hasn't watched your channel in a while,
and your channel isn't going, you know,
your new upload isn't going to probably
be the best candidate for that viewer,
and so you're less likely to get a recommendation
for those inactive viewers,
which means that, you know,
in places like the homepage and other recommendations,
the viewers who are going to see your upload
are the ones that have, you know,
are active on your channel,
and interested in watching.
And so, I wouldn't worry about inactive subscribers
hurting your performance
because those inactive subscribers are less likely to
to see your latest uploads.
Now, you may say,
"Oh, but what about the subscriptions feed?"
Yes, if they go to the subscriptions feed,
they may still see your uploads
but we do most of our learning
about content performance based on the surface
that we're doing the recommendations on.
So we're trying to produce recommendations on the homepage,
we're mostly looking at how
does that video perform when we show it on the homepage.
So that information from the subscriptions feed about,
you know, a viewer saw an impression
and didn't click on,
isn't going to have a strong influence at all
on the homepage recommendations
which are learning primarily from the homepage.
So unless you like really wanna rebrand your channel
and just start with something completely separate,
I wouldn't really start a channel
because your old channel probably still has a base
of subscribers who would be interested in your new uploads
compared to zero on a new channel,
and so I would start with the the base that I have,
and not worried so much about whether
inactive viewers are going to hurt your performance.
All right, Rachel, here comes one back to you.
How important is external traffic
to driving your recommendations on YouTube?
- Yeah, so external is interesting.
Some channels receive more
or less traffic from external sources,
and it is a signal that we consider
which is really helpful in identifying videos
that became really popular outside YouTube.
So if your video starts getting more external traffic,
it can certainly help kick off the process
of getting your video recommended.
That being said, once your video is there
in recommendation showing up
in suggested or on the homepage,
our systems are gonna learn
from how viewers engage with it
when it is recommended on those surfaces.
So do viewers continue to click,
watch it through and enjoy those videos
when they're being recommended?
So if yes, like viewers find it interesting
when it's recommended,
it will continue to be ranked even more highly
on that particular surface.
So external is something we consider,
but the long term success of your video
is gonna be how it performs
when it's recommended to viewers.
- So what about creators
who are concerned that
maybe the traffic coming from
external websites for example,
aren't clicking as much
or maybe their average view duration isn't as much,
is the system gonna learn that this isn't a very good video
if I have a lot of external traffic
that is just not engaging as much?
And I hear a very similar question around ads.
If I run ads,
and the people who click on the ads
aren't gonna be as engaged maybe
as they are from recommendations,
will that hurt my overall performance?
- Yeah, we get that a lot.
So sometimes you're gonna get traffic from sources
where the viewers are gonna be less familiar
with your content and your channel.
So naturally, they're gonna be less likely to click
or watch quite as long.
So if you get more traffic from ads,
or external sometimes you'll notice
your videos overall click through rate
or average view duration
will kind of tank a little bit.
It'll be much lower than usual.
That's not a problem in that in discovery,
each individual surface like home
and suggested have their distinct ranking models.
So on home, home is learning from
when a video is recommended on home,
do viewers choose to watch it?
How long do they watch and do they enjoy it
when it is recommended there.
So overall click through and average view duration
sometimes are not as indicative of videos performance,
and it won't hurt your videos long term success
because the recommendation system,
again is learning how is this video doing
when it is recommended to viewers.
So don't worry about lower click through rates
and average view durations
if you're getting more views from a traffic source
like an external, it shouldn't hurt your videos success.
- Great. So then well I encourage creators
to promote their videos
and get folks interested in their channel elsewhere as well.
- All right, well, that was all the questions
we have time for today,
but if you have more questions about
how YouTube's recommendation system works,
impact on your video or channel performance or analytics,
please leave your questions down below
and we'll try and answer them in future videos.
So thanks for watching and keep it real.