YouTube Algorithm Update: Duration Out-pulls Clicks

YouTube update to its algorithm and analytics improves user experience

 

Google is bang on refreshing its presence almost everywhere in the World Wide Web. One more addition to its existing list of algorithm updates, but this one to its video platform, YouTube. YouTube which functions entirely as yet another search engine in the video category, is still the leader among its peers. YouTube updated its search algorithm last Friday, adding a new factor to the existing list - "amount of time watched".

In short, no more ranking to YouTube videos based on the clicks that they receive. A viewer to your video should watch it right from the start till the end, no matter the duration of the video, whether it is of 2 minutes or 2 hours. Videos will only be ranked if they have a spark to make the viewer stay, and should fall in line with the title. No misleading captions win! This move by YouTube should definitely get rid of scam affiliate links, at least to 50%.

YouTube announced its plans to change focus from clicks to time watched, back in August. Now, this update on Friday landed only a day later that YouTube announced on bringing changes to its analytics.

Analytics Update

The update mainly helps in identifying the number of people who got rid of ‘annotations’ and also the numbers who quit watching a particular video within a few seconds (bounce back). YouTube analytics launched a year back is capable of bringing to light how many people watched a video – full length, and how many quit half way, or the exact point they quit. The new update also includes a report named “estimated minutes watched”. Annotations, is considered a big update because, some of these can include links to other parts of a company's profile or website. The new update helps the user to view the click-through rates for these annotations.

YouTube's addition feature incorporation to its analytics, aims at helping the content creator to identify those videos that the viewers actually find interesting, valuate and rank performance. Helps them differentiate those that actually makes the visitor stay and those which make them lose interest.

Everyone doubts if the time spent on a particular video or the ratio of time spent is taken into account in Analytics. DigitalTrends shares the confirmation from YouTube spokesperson as -
"the algorithm will in fact take into account the amount of time spent watching a video".

Update to Copyright Algorithms

In addition to these updates, YouTube also managed to do an additional update to cut down on invalid copyright infringement claims. Thabet Alfishawi (Rights Management Product Manager) shared -

"When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification. This process prevents disputes that arise when content not owned by a partner inadvertently turns up in a reference file. Smarter claim detection minimizes unintentional mistakes. Of course, we take action in rare cases of intentional misuse, up to and including terminating Content ID access."

This update filters potentially unjustified video claims, relieving users whose videos uploaded by the system was incorrectly reported as suspicious. The simple term for this update is "videos with claims of invalidity against them will be put in a queue to be manually reviewed". Hence, this update proves effective against video piracy acts happening in the YouTube channel.

Tips to Grow Viewer-count

• Regular use of Analytics to measure changes to the video structure, pace, format, and content
  
• A best introduction to your video is essential and make sure to hook user from start of the video till the end
• Strictly no brand building attempt right at the start that makes the video appear bad
• Be creative and think out of the box
• No misleading titles or thumbnails for your videos
• Perfect Meta tags and compelling titles are key to viewership
• SEO help could be sought for getting a stronger viewership
• Edit your videos with good insight
• Be a viewer yourself and test-drive your creation
• Make your videos feel interactive
  
• Link one of your videos to another in the most appealing manner
• Highlight your brand only in the spaces possible, and in an effective way
• Respond to your viewer comments
  
• Advertise your videos in your blogs and articles
• Schedule your video releases in a systematic and professional manner

Google is king in the search world. It aims at YouTube attaining the king status in the video world. Online users are well engaged in viewing YouTube videos, very much equal to their engagement in social media networks. This ratio is likely to change if the efforts of YouTube continue as is. A better user experience drives in viewers whether it is television or social media or YouTube.

YouTube says that it has already received positive experimental results ("less clicking, more watching") following the new update to its algorithm! This should be a start from their end, what do you think the next step will be?

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Search Engine Vogue – Current Data on Performance

Experian's report on search engines’ ranking caught our attention, and we present here their data for four rolling weeks ending September 8, 2012. This analysis is predominantly based on U.S. and statistical conclusions surrounding that region alone. We have presented them as charts and tables for an easier interpretation.

Google tops the list of top search engines, ranked based on the total visits and percentage of visit shares to the domain. Bing comes second and the ratio scale of the total visits between Google and Bing is approximately 7:1. Google remains king as always, while Bing has managed to kick back Yahoo. Meanwhile, this was not the case in August 2011, when Bing occupied the third position and Yahoo the second and Google as always the first, as per Comcast. Microsoft leads Bing in the right path, good marketing strategies are being followed by them, for example, the recent “Bing it on” challenge, and definitely all their effort shows of. Yet it has to travel so far, as per the data, statistically seven times more effort should be put moving forward. Below are charts depicting the above data provided in the table.

Direct Search Toppers:

The table below shows the list of top websites that are most visited most next to search engines.

Facebook, the social media king ranks first here with 6.83% click through rate. Youtube, the most viewed video channel ever follows Facebook. But the difference between the click through rate of Facebook and Youtube is approximately 2:1. Again Facebook gets twice as much direct entry into their site compared to Youtube.

Google Search Term Toppers:

The above table gives the data regarding the top search terms used in Google search, the search percentage and success rate for each. Note that - “craigslist” – keyword ranks higher than yahoo mail. Gmail’s overtaking Yahoo’s mail service altogether? Success Rate for all top Google Search keywords are more than 80%, which is a really good score. Google is not only able to maintain its top position through years, but also strives at providing its users with appropriate data they are in need of. Below is a pie-chart for the same data.

 This information is presented by SubmitINme.com – The leader in SEO and social media marketing.

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Google Penguin Update – Blessing or Burden!

Search engine optimization of a website is a continuous process. As the website reaches on the first results page of the search engines, it receives more queries from people searching for related products and or services. Keywords related to your website are the major factors, which helps in pointing visitors to your website via a search engine. The whole concept has a huge financial affair involved within it. So some malpractices were devised to create artificial surge of visitors. The most popular methods used to achieve this abnormal surge of visitors were tremendous back-linking and over optimization techniques.

Fair play policy justifies right for everyone! It is not fair that cheaters eat the cake and drink wine too!

Well in such events of over optimization of search engine the quality of the website content was bound to get compromised with spamming, duplicate content, and useless information for the visitors. Over enthusiastic developers did not care for loss of website quality. So a good quality website got compromised over to an average website with less valuable content for visitors. On the search result pages, these average quality websites were placed, which became a concern for Google.

The wrong needs to be corrected at right time! Or it sores!

Google had released Penguin update to control the malpractice. Penguin update was released with an aim to support quality websites on result pages and to control the web-spam, over-optimization and millions of links pointing to low quality sites. In fact, this is a fair play policy. Websites with best and ethical search engine optimization methods were not disturbed due to Google’s Penguin update, but the spammers definitely received a swift slap! The Panda update of Google targeted larger number of sites, than the Penguin update, but with Penguin update, the spam is controlled with a sigh of relief.

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Customized URLs for Google Plus - Expecting To Posses One Very Soon

Improve your SERPs, thereby influencing SEO and SEM

Awesome news rolled out for Google+ users on August 23, 2012. Forecasting the future of social media marketing and its influence in SEO, SEM and internet marketing, this announcement by Google is much refreshing. Google plays its part in encouraging its social media outlet, Google+ and to make its reach viral among people, through this initiative. Saurabh Sharma of Google publicized the launch of custom Google+ URLs to "more" verified brands and individuals, in his Google+ page. As you know, Google plus vanity URLs would be free of cost; we are still not sure about the eligibility criteria of Google for one to get a vanity URL?  Perhaps, 50+ members in a circle? OR 100+ Fans to the profile? Only time will tell!

Notable comments on this news are as follows:

·         "got google.com/+Forbes thanks! now i need to work on my own profile. how do i get verified? how many thousands of circles does it take?"

·         "I'm really sad at Google doing this again to only SELECTED groups or individuals. I really hated it."

·         "The Page/Profile numbers are unique identifiers and in a lot of cases its easier to work with the numbers then the "translated/redirected" vanity urls. API's, contact management or extensions/apps working well with the unique identifiers. I hope that there is always a easy way to see the Profile/Pages numbers..."

·         "those are all celebrity profiles. I don't seen any "regular" people on that list.  I don't consider it a lot unless anyone can get one."

Being collective, those were all mixed reviews. Most of them showered their depression over Google not lending vanity URLs to commoners. This makes it crystal clear that everyone is badly in need of one. 

Who all are lucky enough?

Anyone can claim for a custom URL. Only “claim”! Unfortunately they have limited this offer to only few Google+ profiles currently. Google opines that anyone's custom URL which passes the Google+ 'User Content and Conduct policies' could avail this service but not for all at present. Obeying 'User Content and Conduct policies' refers to three conditions:

• If the custom URL has already been claimed, it is no longer available. Only one Google+ page or profile can have any specific custom URL.
• The term you're attempting to use for your URL is generic, such as water or hamburger.
• The term you're attempting to use for your URL is unique to another entity (e.g. Google, YouTube).

 Keep your fingers crossed that you receive one!  And, no one can posses’ more than one custom URLs for a particular profile page in Google+. Also, the custom URL should have either your name or your brand's name. If this policy is violated, Google has got the power to reclaim such URLs. Another important point to note is that, all Google+ custom URLs should have a length more than 5 characters. One more to add, custom URLs are not case-sensitive. It could any form among - "google.com/+Chrome" or "google.com/+chrome" or "google.com/+ChRoMe".

Steps to follow to receive Google's custom URL:

1.       You will be able to see a notification at the top most part of your Google+ homepage, saying - "Your page is preapproved for the custom URL: google.com/+PageName". Nearby this message will be displayed two tabs, one "Claim URL" and the other "Learn More".

2.      Click on the "Claim URL" button and this leads you to a page displaying your desired URL there. Click the radio button there and check the box near - "I agree to the 'Terms of Service'".

3.      Once approved you will not be given an option to change your custom URL. So better be careful when you proceed with the process.

4.      Otherwise, if you are not satisfied with the pre-approved form of custom URL, you have the option to change it.

5.      At the bottom end of the same page will be two tabs, "Claim URL' and 'Not now '. Nearby will be displayed a text - 'Request a different custom URL'

   6.   There pops up a new page with space allotted for your requested URL, and you can type-in    your desired form. Also select the reason for this change from the drop-down box provided below.

    7.   Once approved you may not be able change your custom URL.

    
     8.  If your URL was not approved, you will receive an email notification saying - 'The Google+ custom URL you requested was not approved.' or look at the top of your Google+ homepage at the grey area for a sentence as such - 'The Google+ custom URL you requested was not approved.' In such a situation, you do have an option of claiming one of the pre-approved URLs that were initially provided for you.

     9.   This is done by clicking on "Claim URL" button in the email notification letter or the one in the grey area of Google+ profile page. 

     10.  10.  Check your status at your profile page now. Go to the 'About' tab and check your status which says "Google+ URL". If your request is in pending, then "Google+ URL" will be shown in grey color. If not listed, then your request is been declined.

Benefits for SEO:

How the newly set vanity URLs is going to influence SEO? A brand or person with customized URL will be more popular and reachable than the others who lack one. Obviously SERPs will be steep high for one who receives vanities improving their online presence. I am not saying that possessing a vanity URL will build your brand name or popularity; it paves way for you to enlarge and grow your circles. It should be like fertilizer to a plant that enhances growth. Having a live presence on Google+ combined with possession of vanity URL leads you to influence Google's personalized search results. The good news is that many companies have already added this feature as one of their social strategies. It’s been roughly estimated that by 2013, more than 400 million people will become active users of Google+ and more than 50% will have customized URLs for the same.

Cast your votes as comments on the following opinions on custom Google+ URL:

• I am badly in need of one
• I never care for having one
• Even if I have one, I am not sure how far it is going to improve my purpose
• It’s all Google’s trick to increase Google+’s popularity

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