I work to get a couple of my tags to rank for a video and while I continue adding additional tags hoping they will rank, the ranks go down on the previous tags. What does one tag have to do with the others?
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YouTube SEO Why does adding a new tag change the Rank of an existing tag?
- Thread starter MyBlocksStrongestMan
- Start date
Rankings on tags change a lot. That's part of the algorithm.
The simplistic explanation: If you have two videos, one with the tag "Here", and the other with two tags "Here" and "There", your "Here" tag will rank higher than "There". Take out the "Here", and the two tags rank pretty much the same.
Now add in billions of videos with "Here" and "There". Constantly changing, and constantly being searched on.
I cannot speak for the TB ranking algorithm, but the YouTube tag system is doing that. What tags are searched more, what videos are using these tags (and using them correctly), if tag saturation is happening (See below for explanation), if people are coming to your video because of that tag, etc.
It's really a balancing scale. Don't expect it to be exact every time.
Tag Saturation: Where you use variations of a tag to try and saturate the searches. This is frowned upon, and can lower your overall search score. E.g. tag chain: "Taylor Swift", "Taylor", "Swift", "Swift Taylor", "Musician Taylor Swift", "Taylor singer", "Swift singer",
The simplistic explanation: If you have two videos, one with the tag "Here", and the other with two tags "Here" and "There", your "Here" tag will rank higher than "There". Take out the "Here", and the two tags rank pretty much the same.
Now add in billions of videos with "Here" and "There". Constantly changing, and constantly being searched on.
I cannot speak for the TB ranking algorithm, but the YouTube tag system is doing that. What tags are searched more, what videos are using these tags (and using them correctly), if tag saturation is happening (See below for explanation), if people are coming to your video because of that tag, etc.
It's really a balancing scale. Don't expect it to be exact every time.
Tag Saturation: Where you use variations of a tag to try and saturate the searches. This is frowned upon, and can lower your overall search score. E.g. tag chain: "Taylor Swift", "Taylor", "Swift", "Swift Taylor", "Musician Taylor Swift", "Taylor singer", "Swift singer",
OP
OP
Thanks for the detailed response! I was taking that tag saturation approach at the beginning when I didn't know anything, but now I'm trying to go back and make my tags, title, and descriptions long tail phrases that I would actually search if I were a viewer of this content.
That is the best way to do tags. Keep in mind - you can also do hashtags in the description. Keep those to 1-2 words and 4-5 hashtags to increase SEO.
Jeffrey, could you show or link some examples of using hashtags in descriptions outside of listing three hashtags at the bottom of the video description. THKS
OP
OP
Should the hashtags match the regular Tags or be less verbose like a Google/YouTube search term and more brief like a Twitter hashtag?
Not sure what you want me to show. Hashtags should work a lot like tags - use your description and title to form key search terms. If you're a YT on cars, and the topic is Mustang, you should have #Mustang for a hashtag. Otherwise, watch this video:
thanks for that explanation. I'm new to YT optimization. Do you recommend each video have their own unique tag or should I be using the same tag for all my videos? My videos are me golfing.
OP
OP
The best advice I would give is to use phrases in your tags, title, description, and spoken in your videos that are words you would actually search yourself if you were looking for this content. I found myself getting too fancy at the beginning and forgetting this simple principle.
Oh interesting. When I write my blogs, I have 1-word tags. Thanks for that tip!
Any advice for videos without any words? My videos are a fast cut of every golf stroke I make playing 9 holes. I'm not talking or anything like that.
OP
OP
I'm no expert, but I would argue that he's so well known at this point that people will find him even without tags by just searching for "Mr. Beast" and then watching whichever videos look interesting. New or small YouTubers are not in the same situation.
I want to ask about this. So if I rank exceptionally well for the term, "Genshin Impact Razor Build" and I know that as a searcher, I may type this in a variation of ways since it's split by [Genshin Impact] game, [Razor] character, [Build] focus of the subject matter. So if I decided to enter, "genshin impact razor build / razor build genshin impact" this is frowned upon? Also, if this is, and I choose one of these, will it still populate if the combination of words is used in a different order? Thank you
Murr