Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?

Subject: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: matt milton
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 07:03 AM

Yes, I know the answer is "tags", but...

...I have just uploaded my first ever video to youTube. I wrote out a load of tags for it to be searchable by. I placed each one in double quotes.

Then, finding that my video was totally unlocatable, when I typed in any of those words into either Google or YouTube, I replaced the double quotes with commas.

It is still utterly un-findable. What am I doing wrong? They are not exactly common tags!

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 07:11 AM

The tags won't come into operation immediately. It's usually a day or two (or so it seems) - presumably while the database is being re-indexed - before they start to have an effect.

When I add a video to YT, I just input a string of tag words separated by spaces - no commas or quote marks. They seem to work eventually, but I'm not impressed with the YT indexing system, to be honest.

It seems to me that the title info (and band name info) may be what a lot of people search on.

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: Tootler
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 07:13 AM

I assume you tried searching for the title of the song?

If it's a popular song, then there will be dozens of covers and yours may well be buried on page 256 of 256. As You Tube is a Google site, they probably rank videos by the number of hits so you need to build up some views first.

Most of mine only have fairly modest numbers of hits - a few tens for the most part, but they are starting to appear on page 3 or 4 of a regular Google search. I find searching You Tube much less predictable and you often seem to get unrelated hits. They break the search term down, and give you videos which maybe have only one or two words from your search term in the title or the description of the video.

Finally you need time and to build up a presence on You Tube which means publicising your efforts on sites like this.

My 2p worth

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: matt milton
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 07:33 AM

Yes, I tried by title.

It's probably, as Will suggests, that it takes a few days.

as far as I'm aware, it's the only version of Georgia White's "Almost Afraid to Love" on youTube.

Though then again, maybe there's hundreds and I just can't find them!

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: maeve
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 07:41 AM

I found it immediately by title: "Almost Afraid to Love"

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: matt milton
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 08:06 AM

Ah, OK. Thanks - it appears that the YouTube search-engine elves have been working away while I typed!

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 10:58 AM

Nice version, by the way!

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: Genie
Date: 02 Jun 12 - 12:40 AM

Glad you found it, Matt.

FWIW, I find it helpful to enclose linked words either in quotation marks or in brackets - e.g., "Almost Afraid To Love" or [Almost Afraid To Love].

If the title of my video is a common one, I also find it helpful to include in the title space the name of the performer(s) and also things like songwriter(s) names.    If I've included the lyrics of a song, I also put that, in parentheses, in the title.

And if it's a video of a Mudcatter, I include the term "Mudcatter" (NOT "Mudcat") in the key words. If it's from a festival, e.g., FSGW Getaway or PFS Singtime Frolics, I also use the Festival name as a key word.   Those things help a lot in locating the video in a slew of pages of links.

Genie

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Jun 12 - 09:55 AM

Here's a thought, Matt. The title is "Almost Afraid to Love," yet the singing repeats the phrase "almost too scared to love." So if I heard the song somewhere, it's "too scared to love" that would stick in my mind.

I suggest you add a tag for "too scared to love".

Subject: RE: Tech: how do you make youTube videos findable?
From: matt milton
Date: 02 Jun 12 - 02:57 PM

the lyric varies in the original too. I probably sing it differently each time.

But I'm not really trying to get a massive amount of views and turn myself into an internet sensation or anything! (And I was, I wouldn't use that particular piece of footage: the sound quality's pretty awful, and my singing's quite ropey on it).

I just originally wanted to know why I couldn't even search/find my own video! Which now, thankfully, I can.