YouTube SEO: Traffic Sources Affect The Same Traffic Sources

I don’t cover YouTube SEO here much but I found a post from the YouTube Liaison talking about how traffic sources are impacted. In short, the YouTube home page recommendations are affected by viewers watching videos from the home page and not affected by external views, people watching your videos on an external site.

He posted this on X saying, “Traffic sources primarily affect the same traffic source. So home page recommendations aren’t primarily affected by external views, but by viewers watching from the home page.”

This was in response to a YouTube’s creator question on the topic:

Traffic sources primarily affect the same traffic source. So home page recommendations aren’t primarily affected by external views, but by viewers watching from the home page ???? https://t.co/2GvvFKpMiJ

— YouTube Liaison (@YouTubeLiaison) July 5, 2024

There is a whole set of YouTube discovery and performance FAQs, you can go through that but I doubt you’d find any secrets.

I mean, it does say that its recommendation system does pay “attention” to what people watch, what they do not watch, what they search for, likes and dislikes and more.

Watch time is not just made up on the views, but also how much of the video they are watching:

Watch time includes both clicks (you have to click to watch) and retention (you have to retain to build up time). It’s the best metric to know the promise of your thumbnail is being delivered on by your video, and the best indicator of performance https://t.co/liIeS1v1ix

— YouTube Liaison (@YouTubeLiaison) July 5, 2024

Here is a video from that page:

He also said the YouTube “algorithm intentionally has no knowledge of monetization.”

No, the algorithm intentionally has no knowledge of monetization https://t.co/gIdMUl19kA

— YouTube Liaison (@YouTubeLiaison) July 5, 2024

I stink at YouTube SEO, mostly because my videos do not have the headline “how to rank #1 in Google” and because I am not enjoyable to look at :-).

Forum discussion at X.