YouTube Question Keyword algorithm changes?

[Про Жизнь и после]

I noticed that when I am inputting keywords for a video on youtube, it now says "Tags can be useful if content in your video is commonly misspelled. Otherwise, tags play a minimal role in helping viewers find your video. "
This seems different that what it used to say.
Has the algorithm changed recently?
One of the main reasons I joined TubeBuddy was for the keyword tools.

 

[Beanie Draws]

I noticed that when I am inputting keywords for a video on youtube, it now says "Tags can be useful if content in your video is commonly misspelled. Otherwise, tags play a minimal role in helping viewers find your video. "
This seems different that what it used to say.
Has the algorithm changed recently?
One of the main reasons I joined TubeBuddy was for the keyword tools.

To be honest, I'm inclined to ignore what YouTube says there. While yes, you want to focus more on a good title and thumbnail, search is still a huge part of YouTube. You shouldn't focus 100% on keywords, but they definitely help.

The blue graph is my search impressions. I changed the keywords to something much more targeted at the start of 2020... They changed the algorithms at the end of 2018 as you can see with the flatline. Back in those days, single word tags would get you by fine. 2018 onwords, the algroithm changed so you can't rely on single word tags, and look what happened with the blue line when I changed my single word tags into proper keywords. Everything got a boost.

Another video where I changed my keywords around March 2020...

again, another example of fixing up my tags and keywords.




When YouTube says stuff like this, I don't always think they know what they're talking about. They've made a LOT of poor choices over the last 6 years indicating that they don't always get it. They're the second largest search platform, OWNED BY THE BIGGEST search platform... So saying search terms and tags aren't important, to me, feels a bit misleading on their part.

If they completely eliminate tags completely, then so be it, but you can't argue with data. I put the theory of good keywords into practice, and the impression data doesn't lie.

Learn to read your analytics, learn to read your impressions data. I mean, heck, YouTube had a horrible comment system right up until 2019, so I'm less likely to agree with what they say.

 

[Jason Song]

To be honest, I'm inclined to ignore what YouTube says there. While yes, you want to focus more on a good title and thumbnail, search is still a huge part of YouTube. You shouldn't focus 100% on keywords, but they definitely help.
View attachment 9009
The blue graph is my search impressions. I changed the keywords to something much more targeted at the start of 2020... They changed the algorithms at the end of 2018 as you can see with the flatline. Back in those days, single word tags would get you by fine. 2018 onwords, the algroithm changed so you can't rely on single word tags, and look what happened with the blue line when I changed my single word tags into proper keywords. Everything got a boost.

View attachment 9010
Another video where I changed my keywords around March 2020...


View attachment 9011

again, another example of fixing up my tags and keywords.




When YouTube says stuff like this, I don't always think they know what they're talking about. They've made a LOT of poor choices over the last 6 years indicating that they don't always get it. They're the second largest search platform, OWNED BY THE BIGGEST search platform... So saying search terms and tags aren't important, to me, feels a bit misleading on their part.

If they completely eliminate tags completely, then so be it, but you can't argue with data. I put the theory of good keywords into practice, and the impression data doesn't lie.

Learn to read your analytics, learn to read your impressions data. I mean, heck, YouTube had a horrible comment system right up until 2019, so I'm less likely to agree with what they say.

Thanks for putting up the graphs - I'm a visual/analytical guy so this helps to understand what you're trying to convey.

What do you think about putting commonly mis-spelled keyword phrases in as tags? For example if I put "double clasic smash" this comes out with a rating of "66 very good"; but if I put the correctly spelled tag "double classic smash" then it comes out as just good. Right now I'm putting both correct and incorrectly spelled tags but I am wondering if there's any benefit to doing this.

 

[SILTHW]

Thanks for putting up the graphs - I'm a visual/analytical guy so this helps to understand what you're trying to convey.

What do you think about putting commonly mis-spelled keyword phrases in as tags? For example if I put "double clasic smash" this comes out with a rating of "66 very good"; but if I put the correctly spelled tag "double classic smash" then it comes out as just good. Right now I'm putting both correct and incorrectly spelled tags but I am wondering if there's any benefit to doing this.

I don't think we really know the answer, but I can give you some "informed speculation". That is this - it is much easier for search/indexing/Machine learning systems to understand misspelled words than it is to understand alternative phrases or alternative words since those are semantic differences and even the best systems don't associate semantic differences as easily.

You see this every time you search google and it fixes your spelling. That's easy. But sometimes your results aren't what you wanted because you misuse a word or use weird phrasing.

 

[Jason Song]

Thanks - By the way I created the other post because I didn't want to hijack this thread with my question. But since you took it down I'll comment/ask here.
I do agree with your informed speculation - it makes sense to me and I was thinking the same, hence I include both misspelled and correctly spelled tags in my videos.
However, what does this say about titles? In my example below, the misspelled phrase gets a 66 while the correctly spelled phrase gets a 57. This would indicate that my video would have a better chance of being discovered of I misspelled it? Lol?
What would be the more correctly informed move here?

 

[SILTHW]

Try this. Take a video you have published. Go incognito on a browser and go to YouTube. Search your exact title. Then search your exact title but intentionally misspell a word in the title. Did it find your video?

I wouldn't intentionally misspell a word in the title.

 

[Jason Song]

Ok I went to incognito and did the following with my video:

- searched exact title "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style - Can MrBeast Burger Dethrone Smashburger | SMASHED BURGER WAR!"; got nothing; note that I don't have a tag for this entire phrase however I do have tag for "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style" - why won't my title get ranked when my keywords, which rank well, are at the beginning of the title? I thought Google's search reads from left to right?

- searched title but misspelled classic: "Double Clasic Smash vs Beast Style - Can MrBeast Burger Dethrone Smashburger | SMASHED BURGER WAR!"; note that I don't have a tag for this entire phrase however I do have tag for "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style" - why won't my title get ranked when my keywords, which rank well, are at the beginning of the title? I thought Google's search reads from left to right?

- searched keywords "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style"; bingo! Ranked 1st; note that I have a tag for this

- searched misspelled keywords "Double Clasic Smash vs Beast Style"; bingo Ranked 1st; note that I have a tag for this

Yea, I won't intentionally misspell the word in the title lol.

 

[SILTHW]

Ok I went to incognito and did the following with my video:

- searched exact title "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style - Can MrBeast Burger Dethrone Smashburger | SMASHED BURGER WAR!"; got nothing; note that I don't have a tag for this entire phrase however I do have tag for "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style" - why won't my title get ranked when my keywords, which rank well, are at the beginning of the title? I thought Google's search reads from left to right?

- searched title but misspelled classic: "Double Clasic Smash vs Beast Style - Can MrBeast Burger Dethrone Smashburger | SMASHED BURGER WAR!"; note that I don't have a tag for this entire phrase however I do have tag for "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style" - why won't my title get ranked when my keywords, which rank well, are at the beginning of the title? I thought Google's search reads from left to right?

- searched keywords "Double Classic Smash vs Beast Style"; bingo! Ranked 1st; note that I have a tag for this

- searched misspelled keywords "Double Clasic Smash vs Beast Style"; bingo Ranked 1st; note that I have a tag for this

Yea, I won't intentionally misspell the word in the title lol.

Excellent job digging in on it. That is the best way to get answers. We can always answer with best-practices, but sometimes doing a bit of digging will give you a better answer in the context of your specific video and key words.

I want to note - no one searches YouTube in the way you did for the first two examples. They search it the way you did for the last two. @Damon responded in another thread about this and it is worth taking a moment to read his response:
Need Advice - I'm using recommended tags but I am still not ranking high in search. | TubeBuddy Forums

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Also covered well here:

Need Advice - Are Tags worth the effort ?

Are tags still worth the effort of filling up the 500 letter box full. Heard they are only just guidelines and many channel i see that grow do not have any tags. Tubebuddy is the only thing i have found to be useful of guiding the tags so is it worth the effort of setting up tags

community.tubebuddy.com

 

[Kindred]

How do I find the keyword explorer tool? Do you need a specific type of membership?

 

[Nody | Team TB]

How do I find the keyword explorer tool? Do you need a specific type of membership?

You don't need any sort of membership but yes, you will definitely require a TubeBuddy extension, which you can download from this site - https://www.tubebuddy.com/

Once you've installed it, then you need to log in or create an account and once you've done that, then it will look something like this.

So here you can see I've made arrows which are pointing towards Keyword Explorer, so you need to click on that and as soon as you click on that, you will see the below window :-

Now, you can search upto 5 keywords per day Iirc and If you're using one of the paid license of Tubebuddy, you will be given most of the access.

Happy content creating

 

[Kindred]

You don't need any sort of membership but yes, you will definitely require a TubeBuddy extension, which you can download from this site - https://www.tubebuddy.com/

Is this only available in the US because it says I can't download it in my country (UK)?

 

[Nody | Team TB]

Is this only available in the US because it says I can't download it in my country (UK)?

Nope, it's worldwide.

 

[SILTHW]

Is this only available in the US because it says I can't download it in my country (UK)?

Should be able to download it from your browser's extension store. Make sure you are in your country's version of the extension store.

 

[Kindred]

Should be able to download it from your browser's extension store. Make sure you are in your country's version of the extension store.

Hmmm I am definitely in the right country but still can't download it. Anyone else have this issue?

 

[SILTHW]

Hmmm I am definitely in the right country but still can't download it. Anyone else have this issue?

What browser? Have you tried a different browser as a test?

 

[Kindred]

What browser? Have you tried a different browser as a test?

I'm using safari. Should I try out chrome?

 

[SILTHW]

I'm using safari. Should I try out chrome?

Chrome is going to be the most compatible. I personally use Firefox. Either of those are worth a test.

 

[Kindred]

Chrome is going to be the most compatible. I personally use Firefox. Either of those are worth a test.

UPDATE: It's working now with chrome- thanks for your help everyone

 

[Beanie Draws]

Thanks - By the way I created the other post because I didn't want to hijack this thread with my question. But since you took it down I'll comment/ask here.
I do agree with your informed speculation - it makes sense to me and I was thinking the same, hence I include both misspelled and correctly spelled tags in my videos.
However, what does this say about titles? In my example below, the misspelled phrase gets a 66 while the correctly spelled phrase gets a 57. This would indicate that my video would have a better chance of being discovered of I misspelled it? Lol?
What would be the more correctly informed move here?
View attachment 9301

This reminds me of how Daniel Batal would rank for his Filmora 9 videos. The official spelling was "Filmora9" with no spaces, he added a space and would outrank the official videos just because people naturally put in a space between versions.

Also why in my niche, T rex, Trex, and T-Rex all rank differently because there's so many ways to spell it. Andrew is always talking about the traffic light system, so I'm still learning about good vs very good, and the small details into how much impact spelling changes really make overall.