Cracking the YouTube Thumbnail Algo

Ok fellas, I am on a mission to crack the youtube preview thumbnail that youtube automatically sets for you when you upload a video.

My target thumbnail is the second thumbnail, or the default thumbnail if you will, however, just being able to predict one of the three is a good start.

I have created an excel sheet, and I am currently going through my video's and marking at which second each of the three thumbnails first appears. From this I am calculating the % of total seconds, and % of total frames.

Here is what you can do to help, upload a video, find the points in the video of the three thumbnails, and post your results here or in a PM with the frames per second used in the video as well as the video link.

I will enter the data and provide by PM for everyone who participates, also, if you can think of any other calculations to do on this data, please don't hesitate to post it here or in a PM to me.

-tehmadcracker

Here is one tip
Upload a counting video and see the thumbnail number ..

Ah.. its too easy...

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/hqdefault.jpg

put youtube video id in this url and you will have thumb of 480x360

pizous: thats what I am doing, I completely forgot to mention that

zappak: also a good way of easily finding the default image

everyone else: this is going to be a numbers game, with enough data, a pattern will emerge =)

pizous87 said:

Here is one tip
Upload a counting video and see the thumbnail number ..

Click to expand...

That is not working .When i upload a video with pictures and change the order of the pictures in the beginning and the end everytime i get another thumbnail in the middle.People who have partbership can choose their favorite thumbnail of the video.Someone has to make software that can do that.

what's the point of this?

just put your thumbnail in the exact middle, make it display for few seconds and that's it..
what's the problem?

they probably randomize frames, so you can analyze all you want...

it could be random, that has yet to be decided, allegedly there is a formula, ive noticed a few similarities so far, a bunch at 37%, and a bunch at 67%, then i see a random 56% (this is all total seconds)

the point is to ethier prevent a watermark from showing on the preview thumbnail and/or to display a catchy image that people are more likely to click on (insert hot chick here)

btw, I am going to make a program to automate this, if it is figured out.

hertz314 said:

what's the point of this?

just put your thumbnail in the exact middle, make it display for few seconds and that's it..
what's the problem?

they probably randomize frames, so you can analyze all you want...

Click to expand...

You really don*t upload much videos than. They changed it more than 7 months ago.

There is no need to "crack the system "as i know, and it's been explained here already (not by me though) how you can choose your thumbnail from the 3rd choice proposed by YT. Much more useful as you can easily custom your thumbnail add it to the end of your video and the viewer will never notice unless he watch the vid till the very end (I don't have the real stats but let's say a good 50% of the guys stop way before the end)

themaster: hrmm, I am not quite sure I understand, can you please post some links to the threads you are referring to?

Can't find the thread now but to sum up the idea, you must add +33.4% to your video...i mean in time.
Let's say the lenght of your regular video is 90 sec
90 sec= 100%
? = 33.4%
(90 x 33.4) / 100 = 30.06 sec
You must add 30.06 sec

Now for the thumbnail, you create the thumbnail you want, preferably with a real picture taken from the video + some text like "Watch now" with let's say Flash Pro (the best for that kind of stuff) you add 5sec of this thumbnail at the begining of these new 30.06 sec

Final step : you join the two videos

I did this many times it worked like a charm

And now on Youtube your thumbnail will appear as the 3rd choice

example of thumbnail:

excellent info, testing now =]

That is not working .When i upload a video with pictures and change the order of the pictures in the beginning and the end everytime i get another thumbnail in the middle.People who have partbership can choose their favorite thumbnail of the video.Someone has to make software that can do that.