YouTube Help I'm confused about hashtags

[Amanda Summers]

I started my first Youtube channel about 5 years ago but got serious about 3 years ago. I kept putting videos up with excellent content and equipment, well, not the first ones. I trained some young Nepali guys to shoot the videos & put them up. I could barely get 1 sub a day and very few hits from ranking. So, I grew the library and tried to tag them and do everything correctly. Still nothing happened. Finally, with the help of TubeBuddy we are ranking nicely. Still not a lot of views, but we are living in crazy times for the travel/tourism niches.
It seemed that I was putting too many hashtags; I actually didn't know the difference between keywords and hashtags. I put too many hashtags in the description, or so I thought. Anyway, I spent a couple months going through the videos and fixing them the best I could. Someone said if you hashtag more than 3 phrases the bots would ignore your videos or your channel. I thought I'd finally found the answer.
Now I'm looking at the top ones in the search and it seems no matter what I search for the top guys are doing a worse job than I was doing. But they still get ranked as number 1 or 2. How is this possible? Why do I need to make a detailed description and tag it perfectly and these guys can't get busted out of the top spot?
This isn't in my genre, just what I came across in search. after the recipe there was nothing so I just shortened it.
I wonder why/how it even got noticed by the bots. This is all they had in the desc. box except for the recipe:

#BeetrootCutlet #beetrootkebab #Beetroot #Cutlet #beetrootrecipes #quickcutletrecipes #eveningsnack #quicksnackrecipe #food #homecooking
Here is the link to Amazon HomeCooking Store where I have curated products that I use and are similar to what I use for your reference and purchase https://www.amazon.in/shop/homecookin...
Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 30 mins Number of servings: 4-5 persons Ingredients...

 

[Carter Baker Family]

I'm confused too, I'm just starting out and I'm trying to understand the algorithms

 

[Tito Tim]

This is part of what YT has to say about hashtags.

• Over-tagging: Don't add too many tags in a single video. The more tags you add to a video, the less relevant they become for viewers who are searching. If a video has more than 60 hashtags, we'll ignore all hashtags on that video. Over-tagging may result in the removal of your video from your uploads or from search.
• Misleading content: Don't add hashtags that are not directly related to the video. Misleading or unrelated hashtags may result in the removal of your video.

Find playlists & videos using hashtags - YouTube Help

Hashtags are keywords preceded by a # symbol. Hashtags allow you to easily connect your content with other videos or playlists which share the same hashtag on YouTube and YouTube Music. Hashtags also

support.google.com

60 tags?! I could not imagine that...
I use some in my descriptions but have not seen any real results yet. I have only been using them a few weeks. They do say the tags can be in the title or description, so I put them down towards the bottom of my description, out of the way but still searchable. I am trying just 5 tags about my city. I should maybe go country? #iamiloilo #iloiloph #cityoflove #batoiloilo #iloilo

 

[Amanda Summers]

This is part of what YT has to say about hashtags.

• Over-tagging: Don't add too many tags in a single video. The more tags you add to a video, the less relevant they become for viewers who are searching. If a video has more than 60 hashtags, we'll ignore all hashtags on that video. Over-tagging may result in the removal of your video from your uploads or from search.
• Misleading content: Don't add hashtags that are not directly related to the video. Misleading or unrelated hashtags may result in the removal of your video.

Find playlists & videos using hashtags - YouTube Help

Hashtags are keywords preceded by a # symbol. Hashtags allow you to easily connect your content with other videos or playlists which share the same hashtag on YouTube and YouTube Music. Hashtags also

support.google.com

60 tags?! I could not imagine that...
I use some in my descriptions but have not seen any real results yet. I have only been using them a few weeks. They do say the tags can be in the title or description, so I put them down towards the bottom of my description, out of the way but still searchable. I am trying just 5 tags about my city. I should maybe go country? #iamiloilo #iloiloph #cityoflove #batoiloilo #iloilo

Yes, add the country. I can hardly find the Philipines on the map, let alone Iamiloilo. I see it all the time, especially for the US. They don't even realize it's 12 hours ahead of them in Nepal. Also, I'm not so worried about words that no one is likely to look for.

 

[Amanda Summers]

If a video has more than 60 hashtags, we'll ignore all hashtags on that video.

I thought you have 500 characters at the bottom in that box, which are keywords. Hashtags go at the top of your title and only 3 get listed. If you put the location in the box below the description they just put that above the title. I never put Kathmandu or wherever. I'd really like more clarity on this.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

I don't use hashtags myself, the reason being that it appears to be more of a way out of my video more than it is a way in to my video. A hashtag provides a quick exit from my content... but I don't see enough people using hashtags as a proper means of discovery to consider it valuable. I'm not sure if this is being overly cautious... but I use the location stamp in a lot of my videos and much prefer that as a means of discovery (the location stamp takes the place of hashtags when used).

 

[Tito Tim]

From my understanding, the hashtag in the title will display, but is no more, or less, searchable than any other hashtag. You can put the hashtags anywhere in your description and the search engine will pick them up. I was using one in my title to get the location listed, but I never saw that it did any good. I do not think YT uses hashtags very much. Not like on Instagram, where people can follow a tag. I think it is something YT is just adding to try and follow the crowd.
They need to lead, not follow...

I am just experimenting with them to see if I can get more searchable.

 

[Amanda Summers]

I don't use hashtags myself, the reason being that it appears to be more of a way out of my video more than it is a way in to my video. A hashtag provides a quick exit from my content... but I don't see enough people using hashtags as a proper means of discovery to consider it valuable. I'm not sure if this is being overly cautious... but I use the location stamp in a lot of my videos and much prefer that as a means of discovery (the location stamp takes the place of hashtags when used).

So, what I hear you say is that the hashtags aren't searched by the bots? I put it like #tallest shiva statue and also try to say something at the beginning of the description using those words and then in the keyword box under the description box. Is this not useful? I don't think I'd rank for just Sanga, the location of the statue. I'm just using this video as an example, to make things less abstract. Thanks so much. Everyone on TB has been so helpful to me. I'm finally starting to rank, but I haven't gone through all my videos yet.

 

[Amanda Summers]

From my understanding, the hashtag in the title will display, but is no more, or less, searchable than any other hashtag. You can put the hashtags anywhere in your description and the search engine will pick them up. I was using one in my title to get the location listed, but I never saw that it did any good. I do not think YT uses hashtags very much. Not like on Instagram, where people can follow a tag. I think it is something YT is just adding to try and follow the crowd.
They need to lead, not follow...

I am just experimenting with them to see if I can get more searchable.

If you look at the top guy in any search you're likely to find they didn't hashtag or keyword well at all. There is never a description, either. My descriptions are almost blogposts. It's really confusing and I guess that's how they want to keep it.

 

[Tito Tim]

If you look at the top guy in any search you're likely to find they didn't hashtag or keyword well at all. There is never a description, either. My descriptions are almost blogposts. It's really confusing and I guess that's how they want to keep it.

True, the top channels do not worry about SEO because they do not have to. YT knows the big channels will get views and promote them. Stephen Colbert will get 1 or 2 million views on every video. Most of us are not that well known.

I do not know how much tags, hashtags, descriptions etc work... but anything I can do to be more searchable is worth trying.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

So, what I hear you say is that the hashtags aren't searched by the bots? I put it like #tallest shiva statue and also try to say something at the beginning of the description using those words and then in the keyword box under the description box. Is this not useful? I don't think I'd rank for just Sanga, the location of the statue. I'm just using this video as an example, to make things less abstract. Thanks so much. Everyone on TB has been so helpful to me. I'm finally starting to rank, but I haven't gone through all my videos yet.

It's not bots searching anything, it's simply how your video is indexed in order to be discoverable by a particular viewer. Hashtags and Video tags are two different things that do not corelate. Hashtags are the blue phrases that show up above your description and can be searched individually, though they also allow the viewer an opportunity to click away from your video. Video tags are part of your content's metadata. This is the information that YouTube needs so they know what your video is about.

And it is a pleasure to help, it's fun watching everyone grow and improve! Very satisfying to be here!

 

[Dr_Alan_Science]

To say the truth, I don't think YouTube will be so stupid and only follow the hastag to rank the videos.
They will listen to what you said in the video and try to think whether it is suitable to the viewers.