YouTube Question Let's compare! Suggested Videos! 2020 vs 2022

[The Jungle Explorer]

Okay. I have been going through my analytics trying to understand why my channel is just in a free fall. For seven years, up until July of 2021, my channel had seen a steady 300% annual growth rate in viewership. Since July of 2021, I have seen a 60% drop and am now below 2020 levels. One area where I can see the biggest difference on my channel is in the Suggested videos department.

In 2020, 25% of my views came from suggested videos. I had an annual CTR average in 2020 of 5.5%. In the first half of 2021, those numbers were about the same but after July, my suggested video ratio dropped to 11.4% whereas my CTR went up to 5.9%. In 2022, only 10.3% of my views are coming from suggested videos, even though my CTR is now at 6.4% These numbers clearly indicate that YT is simply not suggesting my videos as much as they did in 2020.

So, what I would like to see is, what are your stats for 2020, 2021, and 2022 as far as Suggested Videos go. I need this information so I can compare your experience with my own. Why? Well, up until recently, I was convinced that my drop in views was due to YT pursuing and promoting Shorts and Social media style channels that focus on social interaction rather than producing solid educational content. But some new information has me questioning if I actually did something to break my channel. Only by identifying the problem can one begin to start fixing it. If the problem is YT, there is nothing I can do short of completely becoming something I am not. But if the problem is something I did, then that is something I can fix. What I do know is that, whatever the problem is, it is completely beyond the scope of SEO to fix. The problem is far deeper than just doing good SEO.

So, I would appreciate it if you guys would help me out here. Thanks.

 

[Super Cooper Hobbies]

So, I started in 2020, but let me look and see

This was 2020. Keep in mind that this was when I first started, I had no commitment and didn't know how youtube worked. As you can see, most people who were watching my videos were people who I just shared my channel with.

This was 2021. I started to figure out how YouTube really works, I've got some videos ranked on search now, but pages still seems kinda dominate.

This is this year, so far, youtube search seems to be dominating and I'm not doing too bad on browse features.

I think over the last year, I've really started to figure out how YouTube works and what works for my channel. If it helps your research, I used to have no focus on what I do on youtube, I just did whatever I felt like. At this point, I'm a booktuber, and have more or less niched down to books, this was recent, so my older videos are still getting views.