TubeBuddy "Tags Don't Matter" or DO They REALLY? data and history doesn't lie (how tubebuddy helped me)

[Beanie Draws]

So we've been hearing a lot over the last year or two that "tags don't matter" or "don't matter as much as they used to"
According to this graph, it actually looks like they matter MORE now than ever. This video was littered with single word tags that were nearly irrelevant to the video... well, they were relevant, but they were far too broad, like "art" "drawing" tags that cover millions of other videos. BUT the thumbnail seemed to grab attention.

Now days, the views dropped by half, coincidently after people said "tags don't matter" it's almost as if you can't rely on BAD tags anymore. You need decent tags to be found, otherwise you're relying on praying that YouTube shows your video in recommended or suggested, but people have to have watched it first, to be recommended, and you can't be watched if you can't be found.

in 2016 and 2018, I was relying on just the title and thumbnail, and they did well. 2019, nothing changed on that video, same title and thumbnails, but the title and thumbnails alone didn't result in it being found.

BAD TAGS and their effect on DISCOVERY
Here's the analytics on IMPRESSIONS (how often the video was served) for the traffic source of SUGGESTED (not search(tags) alone as a traffic source, not relying on tags in a "tags don't matter" standpoint before my tags sucked, so I may as well have never had tags on this video.. As you can see, once the algorithm changed to "tags don't matter, you need to rely on compelling titles and thumbnails" once tags "didn't matter" (and my keywords stunk) you'll notice a significant drop.

RELYING ON ONLY BAD TAGS
Here's the results relying on tags only, and I haven't changed my tags at all, they were all broad, untargeted, and the only decent tag I had was "how to draw a velociraptor" so the massive peak at the start was from when Jurassic World was released (I had how to draw a velociraptor as my title, so that would have been the drawing card) the second spike was from Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, but notice that with the same crappy tags I had, there was only a subtle change, the results from tags are a little lower, because my tags were bad, but not as significant of a change as suggested video traffic. So the tags impressions didn't change hugely.... for a statement that "tags don't matter" (again, my tags on this video sucked) then shouldn't the graph change significantly

I've just changed the tags on that video, many of them are ranking now, so I'll try to remember to report back with results from a 7 day change.






Impressions when changing to GOOD tags
I changed my keyword strategy this year for this video, thanks to years of watching tubebuddy and @Andrew it's taken me a little while to understand properly, because I draw, I don't usually focus on data. But if "tags don't matter" and before I changed my tags strategy I had single tags which were poor (I'm trying to find a screenshot because I generally take a screenshot before I change my ) but yeah, my keywords were horrible one word tags. THEN I changed them to ranking keyword terms instead, and oh, look at that... my impressions rose... funny that...

Relying on SUGGESTED instead of tags
And here's a graph of how relying on suggested worked. Notice how impressions were still good for a while there (I had bad tags, but the title and thumbnail alone were enough to get me suggested) and then in 2018/2019 there was an algorithm change. I still had bad single word tags and my reach and views started to TANK down. And you can see the spike at the end where I decided to change my keywords, and lo and behold, my impressions of being discovered again (in search) WENT UP again. The views themselves aren't as good, because I have better spinosaurus videos now, and I've never changed my thumbnail for this one, so I'm sure with a better thumbnail, the views will go up more as my video shows up in search, and thus, probably getting recommended and suggested as well.

So very long story short... Tags DO matter, at least for being found. Good tags alone won't promise views, because you need a good thumbnail, but y ou WILL see your impressions grow as you're shown to people. How can you be found in 2020 if your keywords stink?

And I'm glad I have these old videos to show just how much the strategy of keyword research has an impact on a video's performance over the years. You can see clearly there was an algorithm change in the data, you can see clearly my old tags sucked, and you can clearly see my impressions grew once I changed my keywords into proper ranking keywords.

TAGS STILL MATTER!

I rest my case *mic drop*

 

[Travel Interesante]

I really don't get the whole tags don't matter crowd and you do such a great job of illustrating why Beanie, really well done and hopefully people realize the importance and watch Andrew's videos on the matter. At the end of the day, YouTube is a search engine first. Yes sometimes I click on videos on my home page, but largely when I look for something to watch on YouTube, I'm typing in the search bar what I want.

On larger, single word tags, of course YouTube is going to largely recommend bigger channels with proven track records, but there is plenty of opportunity for those starting out to find a specific niche to fill within search terms.We discovered Content Bug/Cathrin Manning a while back and she hit on how important it was for her channel to rank on niche search terms first to prove to YouTube she had successful content before YouTube decided to push her to people's home pages.

It makes sense to us and we've seen the proof as well. Our first "successful" video was a hotel review where we ranked first for a little while on a handful of search terms related to the hotel. We only had a few hundred subscribers at that point, so if we didn't tag well (on top of the title and thumbnail), we may have never stood out. Our current most consistent performing video is in the same mold, again not a smashing success, but a large amount of our daily views comes through search... it is the definition of slow and steady wins the race.

Without learning from Tubebuddy and Content Bug, we may have never had those opportunities to grow through search. I unfortunately see a lot of larger channels recommending not to focus on tags. It is different for them of course, they already have a base that will watch their content no matter what. Of course in that position it makes less sense to spend a ton of time on tags, because you're confident your own base will push your content enough that YouTube will respond and push it further. It is not realistic for smaller channels though.

 

[Ater]

Good post, I love that you show the data. Thanks.

 

[EnglishwithLiz]

Great post @Beanie Draws . Like you I am not good with data but even for me, this makes sense. Any chance of an example of a tag you changed from bad to good?

 

[Tito Tim]

Seems odd they say tags do not matter 'as much' anymore, and in Studio they have moved them down in a sub-menu. Almost like they do not care about them, or are not encouraging their use.

I still try to use relevant tags, but was never sure how important they were anymore. I do it more out of habit?

 

[Beanie Draws]

Seems odd they say tags do not matter 'as much' anymore, and in Studio they have moved them down in a sub-menu. Almost like they do not care about them, or are not encouraging their use.

I still try to use relevant tags, but was never sure how important they were anymore. I do it more out of habit?

Yeah, I don't think they've outright remove them, or they'd have an outroar of critisism like they did when they mentioned removing community captions, but they're definitly hiding them more in the menus, much like they did with the series playlist settings, which many have said is a powerful tool, yet they're removing them.

So not everything they get rid of or leave on the cutting room floor SHOULD be. And what they think we need and don't need, isn't always correct. But at the end of the day if they have a search bar in it, people are going to use search, and if they removed search, how are you going to find SPECIFIC videos? Keeping search in there means keywords are still important weather they say they are or not.

 

[Jarvis Phan]

Thanks for sharing your data with us.