YouTube’s Changes Search Algorithm to Rank Videos Based on Time-Watched

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Algorithm, clicks, GLJ Media Group, jeffvlog, rank, reelseo, retention, riegel, search, time, videos, watch, youtube

October 23, 2012

by Chris Atkinson, ReelSEO

 

We all knew that YouTube was trying to get people to stay around on the site longer, and they were putting less emphasis on views with all the housecleaning a few months ago.  Several creators cried foul on the new YouTube, which saw their subscriber base and valuable views go down, but we saw that a lot of what YouTube was doing was about engagement, not views.  In other words, make your viewers stay around with great content.  Well, the YouTube Creator Blog announced on the weekend that YouTube’s search engine is going to be optimized for a video’s time watched.

Time-Watched is New Ranking Factor: What Does This Mean?

It means if you keep viewers around on YouTube longer, you’re videos will start ranking better.  And the view count is discounted at this point.  It doesn’t mean trying to come out with a ten-minutes-or-longer video just for the sake of coming out with something longer, you actually have to keep those audiences for a long time throughout the video.

Which is something you can actually track.  Just before the announcement about the algorithm change, the YouTube Creator Blog also announced some changes to YouTube Analytics so that you can track Estimated Time Watched:

 

So it’s pretty clear now, if it hasn’t already hit you on the head, that retaining viewers has become very important when it comes to your videos.  You won’t be getting by with a five minute video where people leave after a minute and a half.  It means you have to hook your viewers early and get them to stay around for the duration, and you should always be getting your viewers to ask, “What happens next?” or “tease” great content throughout.

By the way, while we’re here, YouTube Analytics is also offering “Annotation Tracking,” which will report the performance of your annotations, the “click and close” rate.  This becomes a nice feature because as we reported earlier, you’ll be able to send people to your website through annotations in the future.  And it will also tell you how many times people are clicking on them to get to other videos.

So, some new stuff to chew on for future video making.

Source: YouTube’s Changes Search Algorithm to Rank Videos Based on Time-Watched http://www.reelseo.com/youtubes-search-algorithm-time-watched/#ixzz29hnuIU00

 

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YouTube Adds More Audio Editor Options For Video Creators

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abilities, assets, audio, audio levels, capabilities, clips, Dynamic Editor, edit, editing, editor, GLJ Media Group, jeffvlog, multi-track, music library, options, reelseo, riegel, tools, tracks, youtube

April 27, 2012

By Chris Atkinson, ReelSEO.com

YouTube has enhanced their minimal audio editing options with a few nifty features, steps I hope bring YouTube closer to becoming a more dynamic editing tool.  On Wednesday, software engineer Bob Glickstein announced on the YouTube Creator Blog a few new exciting changes that will make audio a little easier to deal with from this point forward.  They’ve added more free music tracks to the library, and they’ve made it where you no longer have to remove the entire original audio just to add one of those tracks.

YouTube’s New Audio Options: A Sign Of A More Dynamic Editor In The Future?

Video creators wanting to use one of YouTube’s free music tracks in the past would have to sacrifice the entire original audio to get it.  Now, they’ve added several options to make the music anywhere from “soft background” to “completely replace.”  This allows you to keep the original audio in some form if you’d like, and it’s subtly a “second audio track,” one that you might see in decent editing software.  Of course, top-end editing software has multiple audio tracks where you can lay down as much different sound as you want.  I’m not sure YouTube will ever go as far as making multi-track video and audio editing available, but this is a nice step in that direction.

Here’s YouTube’s video showing the new features:

 

 

Glickstein touts these new audio features for YouTube creators:

• A music library with more than 150,000 free songs to choose from
• You can adjust the levels of the music now, as we discussed above
• They have a “featured tracks” option to easier find songs that fit the video
• Revamped Audio Editing user interface

So this is good.  Having a large library of free songs, and enhancing your video, is a really great feature, and now you don’t have to lose any of that original audio if you don’t want.  It’s also nice that they are making it easier to find something that might make a good match with your video: you can sort songs by genre and running time.

Glickstein promises that this is only the first in a series of changes to Audio Editing, so maybe he is hinting at a more dynamic audio editor in the future, which is exciting news for those who might not be able to plunk down the money for even a lower-end editing software.

Go See for Yourself…