Youtube’s Guide to Search
https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/discovery#strategies-zippy-link-1
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpjK416fmKwQK6_REczCaBQ1x1jyHvZAF
Youtube has created a set of resources to educate its content creators on how their content gets discovered. Having that understanding can be important to a channel’s success. One of the topics in the series is specifically about how search works on Youtube. The goal of Youtube search, just like Google search, is to surface the most relevant content with respect to the user’s query. As far as the ranking of that content, the view count is not the only factor. Videos are also ranked on how well the title, descriptions, and content of the video itself matches the query.
Even with these resources that aim to demystify the search process, creators may still feel at a loss when it comes to helping their videos surface. There are, however, a few best practice guidelines to follow to give their videos a better chance. They include writing thorough video descriptions, creating content around currently trending topics, and including relevant search terms in their titles. I think that it is incredibly helpful for Youtube to increase transparency around the search process and be straightforward with its creators about how to increase their video rankings. However, when they provide a checklist of items that will boost their scores, it leaves the search process vulnerable to exploitation by those who care only about view count rather than quality content. Youtube makes an effort to correct for this by also taking into account watch time and engagement with the video. In this respect, the videos are treated somewhat like search engine ads, which are also evaluated by the quality of fit with search terms.
I thought this was interesting given what we have learned in class regarding web search. While the model we learned about is a simplification that uses only links as a measure of authority or hub score, which then translates to a ranking, it’s interesting to see what other features platforms will take into account for more complex search ranking algorithms depending on the goals of that platform. For example, while Youtube looks at watch time, what might Facebook pay attention to when deciding how to rank different people with the same name? In this case, perhaps mutual friends become “links” that turn into scores. For a regular user who only sees search as a simple tool to find content, the linked resources from Youtube provide insight into the more complex relationship that content creators have with it. Also, for the casual Youtube user, it just shows how much goes into the results that show up when they search “cute dog videos.”