YouTube Question Question about video tags ..

[sjs94704]

First, I am talking about a SHORTS video here ...... not a long form one .....

In regards to video tags, I see that there is talk that tags can sometimes hurt your videos.
So, I did some further researching of the keywords on one of my videos and I discovered that
I had a list of like 20+ tags on one of my shorts, but only 3 of them were actually good for my video.
I had posted my video at 9AM and for most of the day NOTHING!

But then, I deleted those tags that the system I was using said were not helping, took the dog for a walk
and went to the Target around the corner from my house. I was only gone for about 30 minutes and when
I came back all of a sudden after all day, the views started happening.

All I did was get rid of the tags that were not helping me.

I totally get it that no one can say with absolute certainty, but, is it POSSIBLE that those tags that I had deleted
were just dragging my video and by deleting them it helped to get my video seen or was that just a coincidence?

 

[MediaMan]

Based on my research seems like any more than 3-4 tags Youtube might think you're spamming so it might give you less impressions. I also think YouTube only uses the first 3 tags, I could be wrong. I'd say sticking with only the most relevant 3-4 tags will definitely help YouTube properly index your video(s).

 

[sjs94704]

First, I am talking about a SHORTS video here ...... not a long form one .....

In regards to video tags, I see that there is talk that tags can sometimes hurt your videos.
So, I did some further researching of the keywords on one of my videos and I discovered that
I had a list of like 20+ tags on one of my shorts, but only 3 of them were actually good for my video.
I had posted my video at 9AM and for most of the day NOTHING!

But then, I deleted those tags that the system I was using said were not helping, took the dog for a walk
and went to the Target around the corner from my house. I was only gone for about 30 minutes and when
I came back all of a sudden after all day, the views started happening.

All I did was get rid of the tags that were not helping me.

I totally get it that no one can say with absolute certainty, but, is it POSSIBLE that those tags that I had deleted
were just dragging my video and by deleting them it helped to get my video seen or was that just a coincidence?

Awesome! Saves so much time from obsessing over tags... I think there is a lot of
misinformation about tags and there are creators out there who show people how
to build YT channels wit all sorts of information.

Thanks much!

 

[Damon]

Yeah, no need to obsess over tags these days. Pick a couple, three or four tags and call it a day. That's all I do now.

 

[Anthony Miyazaki]

YouTube does not use only the first few tags. They give us up to 500 characters for a reason. They really do want to find the best audiences for your content so having more tags helps them do that. Now, might having more tags make it take a bit longer for them to find those audiences? Perhaps. But this is happening at a fairly quick pace with millions of videos and hundreds of millions of viewers at a time.

Even our buddies at TubeBuddy suggest that we should fill out the 500 characters for tags.

I will agree with Damon's comment that there's no reason to obsess over tags, but I think that's easier for people who have built a strong community around their YT channel.

Anthony
(I build brands for people and organizations.)

 

[TangoRomeo87]

Tags are the least important part of your upload these days, they used to be important but YouTube has better ways to find out where to rank you and where to suggest your videos.. Title and Thumbnail are the most important. The Algorithm already knows what your video is about, it's already watched it, transcribed it and put it where it thinks people will click it. Your title and thumbnail draw the attention and get the click, the more clicks, the more YouTube presents is as a suggested video, secondly, creating content that keeps the viewers engaged is the big puzzle piece, the longer they watch, the better you rank. So say what you say in the first 15 seconds helps put you where you want to be, kind of the way tags used to help.

 

[Anthony Miyazaki]

Tags are the least important part of your upload these days, they used to be important but YouTube has better ways to find out where to rank you and where to suggest your videos.. Title and Thumbnail are the most important. The Algorithm already knows what your video is about, it's already watched it, transcribed it and put it where it thinks people will click it. Your title and thumbnail draw the attention and get the click, the more clicks, the more YouTube presents is as a suggested video, secondly, creating content that keeps the viewers engaged is the big puzzle piece, the longer they watch, the better you rank. So say what you say in the first 15 seconds helps put you where you want to be, kind of the way tags used to help.

I agree with what you're saying, but I wouldn't discount tags too much in that they also help with where YouTube places your video so that algorithm can do its magic. Some videos with limited speaking will have very little (or no) transcription (words on the screen aren't "read" by the system). I agree that title helps with placement, but the thumbnail is for the viewers. It's the collection of data that helps. Title, description, tags to help with initial placement. Thumbnail and title for initial clicks from viewer impressions. Then, that magic first 5-10 seconds to keep the attention of your now viewers.

I just had a student today who did an AB test (granted, using ads rather than just organic search) with exactly the same meta data. She had one video that was placed primarily on TVs and PCs with the vast majority of impression placements on YouTube channels, while the other was placed primarily on mobile and tablets with impression placements almost exclusively on game apps (such as solitaire, word games, etc.). She was initially thinking that the one placed on TVs/PCs had the best results with about 62% view-to-impression ratio (in-stream ads) versus the one the algorithm had placed on the mobile/tablet apps with about a 19% ratio. Upon further investigation, it turned out that the TV/PC YT channel placements were almost all kid channels (Cocomelon, etc.), which means that her videos were being watched most likely by kids whose parent wasn't monitoring the show/ads. Not her target market. The almost 20% view-to-impression ratio on the game apps, however, were much more impressive when you consider that people are actually watching the video (for at least 30 seconds for it to count as a Google Ads video view) even though they're actively playing and could have skipped that ad after 5 seconds. The point of this is just to say that the algorithm should have send those videos to the same audiences, which it likely did initially, but as luck would have it, a particular segment had higher view-to-impression ratios so the algorithm just kept feeding the video to that group (kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense). The results were massively different. Had she included more info to seed the initial spread of impressions -- such as tags (which she didn't include) -- it may have been more likely that the initial impressions would have been to a more appropriate target audience.

I know I'm talking about video ads (Google video ads on YouTube and its ad partners, thus the apps) versus organic YouTube videos, but they work on the same YouTube algorithm. The bottom line is that a bit more information could have made a difference in where the videos were sent for impressions. (Of course, in the case of our channels, YT considers who our typical viewers are as well in that determination.)

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. Now I'll have to take what I wrote here and build it into a video.

Anthony

 

[Damon]

Yup, always give the algorithm the best chance to place your content in front of the right people.

 

[TangoRomeo87]

YouTube really is going away from tags... Here is a quote directly from YouTube...


Add tags to your YouTube videos
Tags are descriptive keywords you can add to your video to help viewers find your content. Your videoΓÇÖs title, thumbnail, and description are more important pieces of metadata for your videoΓÇÖs discovery. These main pieces of info help viewers decide which videos to watch.
Tags can be useful if the content of your video is commonly misspelled. Otherwise, tags play a minimal role in your video's discovery.

Add tags to your YouTube videos - YouTube Help

Tags are descriptive keywords you can add to your video to help viewers find your content. Your video’s title, thumbnail, and description are more important pieces of metadata for your video’s discove

support.google.com