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The Biggest Myth In YouTube History: Tags
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ส.ค. 2024
- This video might have cost me thousands of dollars, but I had to make it. Today, I want to discuss the biggest myth in TH-cam's history. There is a considerable amount of misinformation circulating in the world of TH-cam right now, and this particular myth isn't receiving enough attention. Unfortunately, like many predatory phenomena, it's the average person who ends up suffering-small content creators and viewers are being misled outright.
FOR LEGAL REASONS THIS VIDEO IS AN OPINION
EDIT: VidIQ reached out to me and removed the misleading language from their website. I really respect that and hope TubeBuddy follows suit.
Here are the chapters for this video. Feel free to jump around accordingly:
0:00 Introduction
0:50 Important Context
2:13 The Biggest Myth TH-cam History
3:18 Creator Proof 1
4:05 Creator Proof 2
4:41 Creator Proof 3
5:07 Creator Proof 4
5:25 Creator Proof 5
5:48 Creator Proof 6
6:05 Creator Proof 7
6:38 Proof From TH-cam
7:22 Hypocrisy and Misinformation
8:38 Why This Is VERY Misleading
9:25 Why This Video Likely Cost Me Thousands
10:11 Okay, So What Does Matter?
Channels featured in this video:
/ @_jared
/ @dammitjeff
/ @waligug
/ @marcelvos
/ @zoltansultan
/ @longestsoloever
/ @mrbeast
Thanks so much for the people that helped with this one! Please go check out their channels!
Note:
I deliberately leave the channel icons and video titles on each video for reference in case anyone wants to see the full videos featured in these documentaries. If anything is unclear, or for additional references, please reach out, and I will happily provide a link to any of the following content discussed, featured, or used as a b-roll in the video.
Copyright Note:
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Music:
All songs featured in the video are from:
- Epidemic Sound: share.epidemicsound.com/8mvwnm
- TH-cam's copyright free music library.
- Or some of Ian Taylor's incredible music. Please check out his music on Spotify if you are into that style. I cannot emphasize enough how good the music is.
=-=-=-=
Creators note:
Hello, my name is Zackary Smigel. I've been creating TH-cam videos since I was a kid. I started TH-cam full-time about five years ago. You might have seen me from Real Estate License Wizard, where I obtained 60,000 subscribers and over 5 million channel views. I have since left that channel for creative pursuits, and this is my first crack at starting something new. I'd appreciate a like and subscribe if this content interests you and I captured your attention for even just a few moments.
On a secondary note, still a work in progress in the new place. I can't get my lighting right, so bare me with me. The audio improved from the last video but again, still having issues with my lighting. I think I figured out my issue so hopefully it'll improve next video. Regardless, I hope the video is enjoyable for you.
Thanks so much for watching,
Zackary Smigel
#youtube #videoessay #zackarysmigel
=-=-=-=
Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more engaging video commentary!
=-=-=-=
The second biggest myth in TH-cam history? If you press the like button on this video, you will receive good luck for 3 days. There's only one way to test this myth, so maybe you should like this video.
Please, do not lose money, do not go into debt, do not die. Please.
I agree, tags don't do anything for a video's performance. I think, though, that the SEO tools like what VidIQ has can help find topics, what people are looking for, and content brainstorming.
btw, if you look at the tag section (or perhaps if the FAQs) YT themselves say that tags make little to no difference on the performance of a video
Sure, did that already. Also I heard that subscribing gives you eternal luck, so have done it as well.
On the topic of the video though... Heh... I wish I could be as successful as you and I focus on the content and tags are an afterthought for me that I just put in while it's uploading and I have nothing better to do.
let’s see…
Hey, your video is wrong though? I had a video I forgot to add tags to, realized after 1 day because I only got a few hundred views.
The day after I added tags I got 2617 views on that video.
So you definitely need _some_ tags if you're trying to reach a specific audience and youtube isn't already pushing you to them.
UPDATE! VidIQ reached out to me and adjusted any conflicting language from their website. I respect their effort for transparency and now urge TubeBuddy to follow suit.
W VidIQ, I love their vids
nice bc it confused me that they had that because vidiq has said themselves it does nothing
i mean their website still says "These tags play a critical role in how your video is discovered within TH-cam's search and recommendation features." 😭
@@SlowColtthat's true
I thought this myth died away years ago, after people started doing that thing where you list all the big channel names as tags to "try get views when people search them", and then realizing it's not working. This happened many years ago, and there's still companies and channels trying to push this tags nonsense? We really do love to repeat our history huh..
You would think the myth would have died years ago but with a lot of companies and channels pushing tags the myth has unfortunately stayed alive. It is crazy to think about.
@@ZackarySmigelso PewDiePie lies?
so happy this channel blew up
i can't find hands these hypnotic anywhere else dawg
@@theblode1337It's giving "Zoomer Steve Jobs" 😂
I appreciate you taking the monetary hit to inform instead of mislead. They very least I can do is leave a like. I'm glad I subbed to you, you seem like a real stand up dude
Zack, you are genuinely a national treasure. This is an incredibly valuable video even if I’m not intending to become a TH-cam creator. Thank you!
Wow, thank you for the kind words!
International treasure!* ❤
Tags used to work in the beginning of TH-cam. Once TH-cam started using more and more machine learning, they started ignoring tags since they can be gamed.
I don't know this for sure but I believe that tags used to matter quite a bit. And I'm talking like 10 years ago at this point during the Glory Days of Let's Play's. When I would make a video of a new Flash game I would often outpace people that had virtually the same video and I'm pretty sure it was because I used my tags correctly. It was around the time they changed the upload screen and kind of hid the tags that I feel like they were deranked in importance. I don't remember what that was, maybe 5 years ago? Don't have any proof or anything and maybe it was just psychosomatic but it certainly seemed like they used to do something but don't anymore.
Yeah me too, they were really impactful 10-15 years ago
Zackary's videos are always so elegantly worded and come from such a well-educated background it's honestly like a little treat of TH-cam Lore whenever he drops a video.
The GOAT back to share some YT knowledge. 💯
This might be the single most underrated channel on TH-cam. Nice to see you growing quickly cause you deserve it. I don't have any intention of starting a channel but having a deeper understanding of this platform we use so much is important stuff. It's crazy how bad of a job TH-cam does explaining these things!
I work in marketing myself (predominantly socials) and tags, even hashtags, have incredibly limited use these days. They used to be something that you genuinely did need a strategy behind and had to hit the sweet spot of 13-22 hashtags that would reach the perfect market. These days even with all the strategy behind it, at most a client would get maybe 1% of interactions on a post from a hashtag, and it's even lower odds for someone to convert or follow. It's way more important to have something that catches the eye and have your SEO built into your content/captions.
The only reason why I have always filled out the quota of tags on every video I make is as a futureproof for if TH-cam ever decides to shake things up (as they are infamous for) and suddenly tags become vital. It may never happen, but if it does I'm not retroactively adding tags to 5,600 videos, whereas as it stands they are all already done for the sake of a small amount of my time. Could remain a waste, but its a risk I'm willing to take.
As I said in the video, I set my defaults and stopping worrying about them. Settings -> upload defaults -> tags. I saved those when I made the channel and that makes it so they always show up. I set those up once and haven't worried about them since. The problem is people wasting their time adjusting them and of course these services promoting to small creators that the do something when that's just not true.
A thing I learned recently because of my new involvement with Hotline Miami is that it's typically best to just leave the tags blank and just not bother too much with stuff like thumbnails and titles. Most Hotline Miami videos that are popular just use a quickly made thumbnail and say the level, time, and rank, maybe playstyle, or just a literal and accurate summary of the video's contents.
Take a lesson from the Hotline Miami folks: don't pay too much attention to the tags, just focus on making the videos you want to make and you'll quickly get a crowd.
i love how you just float around the internet and point at stuff, like a weathman but for the world wide webernetz.
Accurate!
I think for those of us who have been TH-camrs for awhile, we know that tags are BS. But for newer TH-camrs you’re right, those sites can be super misleading.
Zack, this is incredible, your work's inspired me for a long time, this is another great addition.
Glad to hear that!
I'm constantly amazed by your content, and really like the "cheap" nostalgic effect of you speaking in front of the background.
Thanks for clarifying tags and hashtags. Had no idea 😅I’ve learned a lot watching your channel! I can’t help but think there’s more than just those companies trying to push lies. How does TH-cam stay organized for the viewer as far as perception of amounts of (worth your time)videos being uploaded? Like every bit of my experience on YT has been custom tailored to me. I know there’s a stupid amount of content uploaded constantly but I only could possibly see a small amount per day/week. So when I hear channels trying to grow by using this type of crap it are being scammed more or less, makes me sad that they’re being buried. But for YT it would be fine. Keeping the poor distracted so to speak. I mean I’ve used hashtags to search like 3 times ever and was for help repairing a specific thing. I might need to take the foil hat off. Oh this is too long. Okay bye. Thanks for sharing.
I agree. I've found that creators that just focus on videos that cater to a specific niche of people or interests with as much production quality as they can muster will grow. People are always looking for very specific kinds of content so if you have something interesting to add, the algorithm will find a community of people looking for that content.
The biggest reason I see for small channels failing to gain traction is really low production value or content that is too broad to appeal to anyone specifically.
For example, don't be a "gaming" channel, be a channel for a specific game or genere of games that don't have a massive scene of creators to watch yet. Creators that fill their channels with lots of random videos will drive viewers away who aren't getting the content they subscribed for. Also picking content that is already over saturated is really hard because the popular channels will soak up 99.9% of your potential views. Topics with less competition but growing interest can help grow a channel from nothing.
Tbh I usually don't click on suggested videos unless I'm on my TV. Somehow my TV has better recommendations than my PC and phone. Watching this on my TV rn and you managed to hook my ADHD ass attention with the first few frames, good job. Somehow TH-cam knows what I like and it's a bunch of nonsense and learning and RuneScape music most of the creators I enjoy uses RuneScape music lmao.
Keep the grind going and don't burn yourself out
As someone who has spent most of their life on TH-cam for the past decade, I'm so happy to be getting this insight into the way the platform works. I love that your videos are easy to understand as someone that doesn't make content. So glad your algorithim video got into my feed. ✌️
Honestly just commenting to boost this video, great vid. More people genuinely need to see this
thank you for this, I've been losing my mind thinking tags are useless while everybody says to me they're so important
Here from Marcel, he speaks occasionally about building his channel while building roller coasters. I think it's great he was able to get an input here. Good video for new youtubers
It’s a crime this man isn’t more well known. Going through topics such as this and even doing so in a way that spreads the information faster at the cost of his own monetary gain is something that not a lot of people can do. The simple dedication to the spread of correct information despite the consequences is awe inspiring and the things I’ve learned watching may impact me for the rest of my life. Thank you.
Your videos definitely are helping me shift my perspectives of things on youtube. Also your style of presentation is just *chefs kiss*
Glad to hear that! That's the goal!
i never knew video tags were different than shorts hashtags... TYSM 😭 you are a lifesaver
i'm trying to grow my art business, but i need a platform to do it, so i have begun growing my channel and my social media, a lot of these videos have been very misleading so thank you so much
Good videos man! I like how you uncover/talk about major things on youtube and as danfram said i am also happy you blew up
Working on a social media project for one of my classes. Gonna share this with my teammates since this would really help us out. Thank you for talking about this!
i don’t make any sort of videos, but i really enjoy watching yours, even when they’re more creator focused! it’s interesting to know what myths need to be dispelled lately
Amazing, Zack! You're filling a niche of meta-youtube investigative journalism that I've never seen done better. I love the direction of the channel and I'm excited to see where you go!
Future collaborations with/contributions from other creators would be awesome, and totally on theme for the channel. Plus its a good way to find new audiences!
(Actually, I'd love to see a video discussing the benefits and challenges of youtuber collabs, how to make a good/bad one, how to best afford audience transfer etc...)
Love your work! 🙏✨
Great video. Great channel. Been keeping a watch on your thumbnail change and I would love a future video on your personal experience with your switch. I find the black with text more eye appealing personally, and the first switch thumbnail really took off, but it does also feel like a switch in content as well too. So would love to know if its an expermentation in progress and if it was the thumbnails or really honing in on the subject of youtube?
I'm actually planning on doing a video on this subject very soon!
From what I've noticed, the "youtube search terms" section of the creator studio analytics is based on words you speak out loud in the video. So basically, the captions are the new keywords.
Never thought I would see Marcel Vos and mrbeast in the same frame
Marcel is incredible. So are all of my creator friends!
Protect this man at all costs! I’m so glad your channel blew up Zack! You deserve it 🤙🏾
as someone who's daydreamed about being a youtuber since I was a kid, I find this very heartening & am thankful that you'd make this :)
I litterally cant break 100 impressions on my vids and i have no idea why. Was anxious tags were a problem. Thx for clearing that up! Now if i could only figure out why youtube only gives my vids 40-100 impressions.
You really deserve every subscriber you’ve earned, I like your content and the fact you decide being a good person is better than making a quick buck
i had the same experience, i removed tags on my recent video -because I'm lazy to add the tags- because I wanted to check whether they matter or not! They do not
I remember tags being useful way back in the day but I guess they just got better ways to figure out who to promote your videos to.
#1 thing that keeps me watching:
Quiet Runescape music in the background
Aside from tags, I've had success helping other creators with those tools. Some people, especially younger ones, need an app or program they can visually learn from. I've had them use tag lookups and keyword tools to assist with their scripts and video ideas. There are other tools now available, but years ago, they were great. Functionally I believe tags should be removed, if there's a misspelling issue that could be addressed then it deserves it's own section labeled correctly.
Hi Zack. I love your stuff so I want to give some truly honest, good-intended feedback. While talking with your hands helps you look more 'alive' on camera... Their frequency can become distracting (to me personally), especially when you're on a bright background. Keep up the quality content!
TH-cam really likes recommending you, this was the top video on my recommended 3 times in a row
I clicked on this curious what it was about (like most of your vids) and I had to double take at seeing Waligug's icon. It's not every day that I get to see a Stardew creator on one of the kinds of videos!
I have been wondering the whole tag issue myself. So many conflicting videos and info out there. I'm going to test this theory out. I'll upload my next video without any tags. I will focus on the thumbnail and add a decent description. Let's see how it goes! 😀 Thanks for your awesome videos!
Keep in mind that you can't determine the success of this after just one or two videos. They might perform bad, but that will not be because of the absence of tags and instead due to whatever other reason.
One video will not be enough to show the pattern of no tags. Keep doing it over the next few videos, and you’ll see that tags/no tags make zero effect on your reach on your videos. 👍👍
happy this ended up coming up on my homepage. i’ve seen your other videos and thought i was already subbed, great video once again. :)
Thanks for the kind words!
I tried to tell my friends this, imma send em this, great vid
Always glad when you show up on my algorithm
Thank you for raising awareness on this subject.
This is very informative - but the literal panther walking behind Jared Henderson at like the 4:00 minute mark or so... that was cool!
Got your key messed up on your camera today but other than that, the fact you are so daring to speak up about all the problems that should've been solved a long time ago in TH-cam is so cool
I know, my new place it's hard to get figured out. My autofocus blows. Need a camera upgrade.
My conspiracy take on the subject, I guessing the services pushing tags are text scraping youtube and using the found tags to drive the analytics part of their service, hence the need to push newer youtubers to adopt the tagging to get a quicker analysis of what kind of content is been pushed or is trending.
They should just get rid of the options to add tags, if they literally do nothing.
Okay, but my question is: if tags are so unimportant that even youtube itself don't think it's worth messing with, then why still have them at all?
This is TH-cam: a site that will not hesitate to remove features people actually use (the dislike button), but for some reason they decide to keep tags around despite saying they're essentially useless? It makes no sense.
Probably too difficult to de-integrate without any real payoff. Hiding the number of dislikes doesn't break any functionality, or directly mess with any videos data. Removing tags entirely could mess with the algorithm in unintended ways and at best they save a few bytes per video.
@@celeriumlerium8266 that makes sense: they have actually hidden video tags for a long time now. There was a period when it was public and creators actually used it as an easter egg for keen-eyed viewers.
they do say only use tags if your topic is commonly misspelled, maybe that really is its only use
Thank you! This is awesome information and SO valuable!
I'm curious if tags used to matter, back around 2010 when the algorithm was less sophisticated and there weren't as many variables you could affect to make it clear what kind of video it was. They've been there since pretty much the beginning, so they could just be a relic of a bygone Internet age that survived on word of mouth inflating its importance well beyond their actual shelf life.
It is insane how fast you've grown.
I've heard one thing that'd I'd love any feedback on cause idk how true it truly is:
One tip that *seems* to have helped my TH-cam a bit is using my username as a tag and/or hashtag. As far as I understand, it works like this: if TH-cam sees someone watch a video with certain tags, it's more likely to reccomend videos with the same tag to the user. So if your videos are the only ones with that tag (which they probably would be), TH-cam is gonna be even more inclined to reccomend them. And yeah, just watching a video on your channel would probably get you recommended again and it does require someone to watch the video, but I think this adds another layer of TH-cam pushing your videos.
My theory is that tags aren't as helpful to the creators as they are to TH-cam and advertisers. If a user watches videos tagged certain things, it's just a way of telling TH-cam what they're interested in that tag, not necessarily your content. So when the tag is your username, TH-cam pushes your stuff more because you're the only thing associated with it.
But quality of content and stuff is still most important. This is just a theory I have.
Again, this is just conjecture on my part and it's not some TH-cam cheat code. But it seems to help me and I can just set it up as default and forget about it so I'm not wasting extra time. Please give me any feedback or experiences you've had cause I'm really curious about this one.
Good day when Zack uploads
Good day when you comment
Thank you!! That’s great to know. I’ve been loving your recent content. I’m excited to see more!
Hold on I’ve been shooting myself in the foot by tagging instead of hashtagging? Dang.. That’s so on brand for me it hurts..
What was the BGM at about the 10-11 minute mark? Sounds very familiar and I love it (like it's straight out of Daggerfall or something)
I didn’t even know that people still thought tags did anything when TH-cam clearly states above the tag input field that they do next to nothing.
the runescape bg music is such a great choice
I felt like I got whiplash going from watching a Waligug video to watching this & hearing his voice.
I wonder how the youtube gurus will talk about your success lol Amazing vid pal
I thought these were the same thing at first, but I luckily had this myth busted early on, unlike some others.
A little over 1 out of 7 viewers have liked this video. That's an insanely high like ratio. Well deserved.
W + Ratio!
Thank you for attracting attention to the issues!!
I wish creators would title the video the same as the big text from the thumbnail or vice versa. It makes it incredibly hard to find videos later on for rewatch because of this problem.
It's bad for CTR repeating the samething. Also, according to my knowledge TH-cam reads text in titles. So if you search my videos they should come up.
Idk why but seeing the funny rollercoaster man next to one of the biggest creators on the platform in the same video @ 0:43 made me crack up so hard.
I was not prepared for Baby Beast in this video. Jimmy was so small 🥲
Props to you for not selling out
10:31 I’m curious how you came up with your thumb nail format. It’s not incredibly visually appealing or anything, it’s kind of just text on the black background. But yet, I still wanna watch.
I am going to do a video on thumbnails soon! Thanks, glad its working!
Interesting video. I have no idea that these tags play almost a meaningless role when it comes to trying to get a video out there.
Anyways I do appreciate that this should help people be more aware of it. Even if they would take it with a grain of salt.
I've enjoyed this string of TH-cam analysis videos.
I really love your videos and have been binge watching them,
I understand where you are coming from and I agree with you 100%, people shouldn't worry about Tags.
Also agree companies and So called TH-cam Gurus shouldn't exploit creators.
Time is better spent making a great video and clickable thumbnail.
But .... What TH-cam tells the general public vs what's true doesn't always align.
I'm Curious If Tags were useless, Wouldn't they just remove the tag box.
why? - Creator Insider (TH-cam own channel still uses tags?)
- TH-cam Creators (also a TH-cam own channel) Still uses Tags?
- Rene Ritchie a TH-cam Employee that runs TH-cam Creator Liaison uses tags on his personal Channel?
- Colin and Samir (TH-cam authority) Actually interviewed the new CEO of TH-cam Still Uses Tags?
- Think media (TH-cam Authority ) Still uses Tags
I could go on and on, Many top channels trying to reach a specific market and rank in search still use tags.
The point is Tags were important to target specific search in the past
but they were used to seo spam the Algorithm, So TH-cam Reduced the importance of Tags.
To What level no-one knows but TH-cam.
So if you are trying to rank in a specific search it still might be worth experimenting yourself.
There is no such thing as YT SEO, just the highest view counts biased towards newer content in each of your broad categories. Mostly. However, this need not be a problem at all, you can switch to an offline app which lets you subscribe to channels without logging in, and lets you adjust the UI and the recommendation engine to your taste. BTW... tags are generated from transcripts. Transcripts identify copyrighted material, highlight inappropriate language, indicate subject matter and provide the word frequencies to affect search. This is why youtubers voice over everything.
Another great video Zack Smigel! 🙌
I used tags for a mashup medley and it completely stalled after 1.3k views after a week.
I feel the need to say that being tagged is also not the same as hashtags and tags, but maybe this is obvious
Good point lol
Nice runescape background music as usual :D
I remember this info being expresses pretty openly by TH-cam when they did the metadata overhaul many years ago
Thank you for exposing the truth. Man I do love facts that are true and have no bias.
more youtuber creators should put exploitative companies on blast. if your conscious won’t allow you to work with them, that’s serious enough to discuss
Thank you for your work Zack
Thank you for watching!
Time to hurry up and watch this before it gets removed under "mysterious circumstances".
Hi can you do a avideo on what reused content means. I am trying to grow my channel and i keep getting rejected from the ypp for it and i am not sure why. Thank you in advance and great video once again
I used tags on my old channel in about 2007 and they definitley had worth then. I guess they work in the same way as Amazon search terms in the sense they signal what the video is about when the title and description dont contain those keywords. These examples all have those keywords and phrases in their titles so I don't think the examples are valid
i remember how in 7th grade (2012), we did a project about what our dream jobs were. i said i wanted to be a youtuber, and how some of my idols were nigahiga and captainsparklez. another kid in my group wanted to be president.
I didn't even know tags on youtube were a thing until now
Thanks a lot. That's a big relief actually
Nice job Z!! 🎉
You should do video about TH-cam-8m dataset and all the big TH-camrs in it. You would be mind blown 🤯 everyone in it!
Sounds very interesting! Thanks for sharing. I'll add to the list!
Are you telling me I've spent hundreds of hours tagging videos when it literally does NOTHING?
Yes
@@ZackarySmigel😭😭😭
Serious thanks. Getting ready to start my journey soon. You've saved me a lot of time and brainpower.
This is the greatest video about youtube i seen yet!
I instinctively wanted to ask "If tags are basically broken and useless, why do they exist?", but then I remembered this is TH-cam, a platform which would rather remove actually useful working features like community subtitles than actually improve or fix anything, like the broken DMCA system or the shittastic moderation.
I agree that it's useless today but people wouldn't be using them if it wasn't working!