Our recommendation system narrows down the best set of videos to offer your audience by paying attention to:
- What they watch
- What they don’t watch
- How much time they spend watching
- Likes and dislikes
- Not interested feedback
- Satisfaction surveys
How do I get my videos promoted to a bigger audience?
You don’t have to be an expert in algorithms or analytics to be successful on YouTube. Instead, focus on knowing your audience. Our recommendation system doesn’t promote videos to your audience, but rather finds videos for your audience when they visit YouTube. Videos are ranked based on their performance and relevance to your audience.
How are videos ranked on Home?
Home is what your audience sees when they open the YouTube app or visit YouTube.com. It’s where we aim to deliver the most relevant, personalised recommendations to each viewer. When your audience visits Home, YouTube displays videos from subscriptions. Videos watched by similar viewers and new videos are also shown. The selection of videos is based on:
- Performance – How well your video has interested and satisfied similar viewers, among other factors.
- Watch and search history – How often your audience watches a channel or topic and how many times we’ve already shown each video.
How are videos ranked in Suggested under ‘Up next’?
Suggested videos are recommended alongside the video that your audience is watching under ‘Up next’. Suggested videos are ranked to offer your audience videos that they’re most likely to watch next. These videos are often related to the video that your audience is watching, but they can also be personalised based on watch history.
How are videos ranked in Search?
Like Google’s search engine, YouTube search strives to surface the most relevant results according to keyword searches. Videos are ranked based on the following factors:
- How well the title, description and video content match the viewer’s search.
- What videos drive the most engagement for a search.
Note: Search results are not a list of the most-viewed videos for a given search.
How are videos ranked in Search?
Like Google’s search engine, YouTube search strives to surface the most relevant results according to keyword searches. Videos are ranked based on the following factors:
- How well the title, description and video content match the viewer’s search.
- What videos drive the most engagement for a search.
Note: Search results are not a list of the most-viewed videos for a given search.
Does changing a video’s title or thumbnail re-rank the video in the algorithm?
Maybe, but it’s because our systems are responding to how viewers are interacting with your video differently, rather than the act of changing the video title or thumbnail. When your video looks different to viewers, it changes how viewers interact with it when it’s offered to them. Changing your video title and thumbnail can be an effective way to get more views, but don’t change what’s working.