Do backlinks impact YouTube Ranking and Views? - Case Study

So what are the major factors go getting YouTube videos to rank?

cheapthrillz said:

So what are the major factors go getting YouTube videos to rank?

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Real (not paid, of any kind, not "Vagex" either) views still do a decent job, but the real value lies in "on page" (if we can call it that) SEO, and generally focusing more on the actual video, than it's backlink profile.

Titles, Descriptions, Tags, Social engagement (to a certain degree), Playlists, Favourites, Subscribes created by the video, channel description, video replies, annotations, and social media shares, account for the majority. Much like you wouldn't expect that backlinking a Facebook post would get it shown to fans more, you shouldn't automatically assume that backlinking a YouTube will get it seen more.

Ya for ranking a youtube video on google we need backlinks but for ranking it on youtube #1 , no need of backlinks. On page SEO , real views & social engagement will do the job.

Dude, please make your point clear. In this thread you talk about getting backlinks for ranking on Youtube, which is stupid.
Of course getting backlinks isn't gonna help rank a video on YOUTUBE.

But on your blog you blur things and talk about getting backlinks to rank on Google.
And in that respect, I think you have no idea wtf you're talking about.

Pick a single topic and stick to it.

You sloppy hypothesis isn't even based on real evidence. Yes, you can rank a website with spam.
People are doing it everyday. So yes, you can rank a YT video with spam, and its a smarter idea since YT videos don't get penalized. Websites do. Thus you should use better quality backlinks on websites.

Also, the keywords you picked are too general.
Pick some keywords with some real buyer intent behind them.

Like "how to lose weight", "how to lose weight fast", "how to make money", "how to make money online", etc etc.
Then go check those videos and look how many spam backlinks they have.

If you want to rank on YT, you need retention views, likes, social signals and good on page SEO.
If you want to rank on Google, you need all that shit + backlinks.

If you're going to use spam to rank a video on Google, it WORKS. Cause I've done, I'm still doing it, and so are thousands of other marketers. If you've been sleeping for the last 10 years, then you may not know this.

If you are trying to deny that spam works, that tells me you've never ranked a YT video in your life.
It tells me if you actually ran a PROPER case study, and tried to rank 1 video with spam, and another with HQ links, you could rank both just fine.

But again, I'm still confused about the basic premise of your thread.

Everything I've wrote is common knowledge. And if you think you're breaking any new ground, I have some news for you... you're SOL.

-SB

edit: NEVERMIND. I just noticed your rep score and realized I just wasted 5 minutes of my life.

Zeplix said:

For more on this specific topic, I do sell a course on YouTube-specific SEO:
landing.novelconcept.org/rankingyoutube/

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I am not a mod but I just wanted to tell ya - You are not allowed to advertise until you are a JR.Vip or higher. Better edit the post.

srinu0812 said:

I am not a mod but I just wanted to tell ya - You are not allowed to advertise until you are a JR.Vip or higher. Better edit the post.

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My bad! I didn't really consider it advertising, since it was really just answering the question, but thanks, I'll remove the (non) link!

SpiderBlast said:

Dude, please make your point clear. In this thread you talk about getting backlinks for ranking on Youtube, which is stupid.
Of course getting backlinks isn't gonna help rank a video on YOUTUBE.

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You seem to not, at all, have read the blog post, or even this one. I ONLY talk about ranking videos IN YOUTUBE, NOT on Google.
Even the term "Google" is only mentioned a total of 5 times, one being in a quote, and the other 4 times literally saying that this isn't about ranking in Google.
And, if it's so "stupid", then I see a lot of sales threads that need to be closed down in the marketplace section :S

SpiderBlast said:

You sloppy hypothesis isn't even based on real evidence. Yes, you can rank a website with spam.

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Really, you manage to rank websites with blog comment spamming? If so, you could make a lot of money selling that info to people!

SpiderBlast said:

People are doing it everyday. So yes, you can rank a YT video with spam

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The fact that a lot of people spam their videos, and that some of those videos eventually gain in rank, isn't actually any evidence for it working - it just shows that people are a bunch of sheep.

SpiderBlast said:

Also, the keywords you picked are too general.
Pick some keywords with some real buyer intent behind them.

Like "how to lose weight", "how to lose weight fast", "how to make money", "how to make money online", etc etc.
Then go check those videos and look how many spam backlinks they have.

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Oh the amount of logical fallacies here.
Gee wiz, do you think if we check out a bunch of spammy topics, that those topics will have more spam links pointed to them?! MAN, YOU'RE A GENIUS!
Also, the mere fact that you mentioned those as representative keywords, show how incredibly little you know about YouTube.

SpiderBlast said:

If you want to rank on YT, you need retention views, likes, social signals and good on page SEO.

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This I can pretty much just agree with, in fact, I generally say close the same myself.

SpiderBlast said:

If you're going to use spam to rank a video on Google, it WORKS.

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That's nice. That's not what this thread is about though.

SpiderBlast said:

If you are trying to deny that spam works, that tells me you've never ranked a YT video in your life.

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Yes, the 2 million views on my old channel were all probably fake, my 300.000 views on my current one is probably just a fluke, and the video I increased 4000% in views, was probably just lucky. Man, I've been so silly! Thanks for enlightening me!

SpiderBlast said:

It tells me if you actually ran a PROPER case study, and tried to rank 1 video with spam, and another with HQ links, you could rank both just fine.

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I actually have, though that's not in this blog post, but I have done exactly that. Guess what? None of them showed any improvement over the videos where I had done zero backlinking. But thanks, it was a nice idea, if I hadn't done it already.

EDIT: And when the hell did my rep suddenly go into the negatives? o0
DOUBLE-EDIT: Ah, seems I got a slap for my booboo in the second post, with the link! Makes sense now!

Zeplix said:

You seem to not, at all, have read the blog post, or even this one. I ONLY talk about ranking videos IN YOUTUBE, NOT on Google. Even the term "Google" is only mentioned a total of 5 times, one being in a quote, and the other 4 times literally saying that this isn't about ranking in Google.

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So what you're saying is that you didn't even read your own blog?
Written by you:

Many people still believe that spamming backlinks to your YouTube video, is all that it takes to rank it, and if we had a time machine to go back around 1-2 years, that might still be true. But spamming blog comment links, in the tens of thousands, are a long since abandoned SEO technique when it comes to Google, Bing, and SEO in general for websites - so why in the world do people still think it matters? And more importantly, does it?

Quite f##king clear if you ask me. You state that spamming backlinks to a YT video "might" have worked 1-2 years ago.
It proves without a shadow of a doubt that you have no idea wtf you're talking about.

CAUSE IT STILL WORKS TODAY.

Zeplix said:

And, if it's so "stupid", then I see a lot of sales threads that need to be closed down in the marketplace section :S

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Along with this thread.

Zeplix said:

Really, you manage to rank websites with blog comment spamming? If so, you could make a lot of money selling that info to people!

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Spam does not directly refer to "blog comment spamming".
The word spam is a general word.

And in googles eyes, everything is spam if you built it.
So YES, spam still ranks websites. GSA spam, SB spam, Sape spam, spam spam spam.

Zeplix said:

The fact that a lot of people spam their videos, and that some of those videos eventually gain in rank, isn't actually any evidence for it working - it just shows that people are a bunch of sheep.

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Not "some" >>>>ALL

IF YOU HAVE EVER RANKED A VIDEO BEFORE AND KNEW WTF YOU'RE DOING YOU WOULD KNOW THIS.
The "sheep" is a person who runs a "case study" but entering some random videos into ahrefs. Give me a fucking break.

Zeplix said:

Oh the amount of logical fallacies here.
Gee wiz, do you think if we check out a bunch of spammy topics, that those topics will have more spam links pointed to them?! MAN, YOU'RE A GENIUS!
Also, the mere fact that you mentioned those as representative keywords, show how incredibly little you know about YouTube.

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"Spammy topic"? LOL. You're the one trying to presell traffic on your shitty $40 YT ranking course.
You never see Dr Oz or the tv or the radio talk about youtube ranking but they SURE AS FUCK talk about losing weight.

Zeplix said:

This I can pretty much just agree with, in fact, I generally say close the same myself.

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You're an idiot.

Zeplix said:

That's nice. That's not what this thread is about though.

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Yes but the LINK you PUT in this thread TALKED ABOUT IT.

Zeplix said:

Yes, the 2 million views on my old channel were all probably fake, my 300.000 views on my current one is probably just a fluke, and the video I increased 4000% in views, was probably just lucky. Man, I've been so silly! Thanks for enlightening me!

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Look mfkr. Pick a keyword. Me and you make a video. We'll see who ranks first.
And FFS, you're on a BLACK HAT FORUM talking about "legitimate" views and why that makes you so cool.

While your busy working hard on legit views, I'll be spamming the fuck out of my videos and making more money when I take shit than you'll make in a lifetime.

Zeplix said:

I actually have, though that's not in this blog post, but I have done exactly that. Guess what? None of them showed any improvement over the videos where I had done zero backlinking. But thanks, it was a nice idea, if I hadn't done it already.

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I'll tell you what.
Rather than argue with you and waste another minute of my life.

Lets cut through the bullshit.
You're the one selling a course on ranking YT videos.
When that information has been made WIDELY available on BHW.

But still, you had to go through all this time to run this case study... for what? To find out how to rank videos?
Or to get people to your blog so you can sell them some shitty YT ranking course?

The problem with arguing with idiots like you. You can't give me a clear answer cause you're so tied up on people
buying your bullshit, that you will drag this debate on forever just for the traffic.

SO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS CUT AND DRY AND TO THE POINT.

How do >>> you, rank YT videos on YOUTUBE?
How do >>> you, rank YT videos on Google?

Don't give me all the specifics. Just write shit like "backlinks, social signals, views, etc".
You can save all the specifics for your spammy course.

And if you come back at me with some deluded, half ass bullshit I will leave this thread immediately under the pretense
that you're intentionally trying to leave a void so people will buy your course.

Give me CLEAR, CONCISE answers or STFU.
I actually made clear claims about ranking on both Youtube and Google.
And up until now you've done shit.

-SB

SpiderBlast said:

Lets cut through the bullshit.
You're the one selling a course on ranking YT videos.
When that information has been made WIDELY available on BHW.

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It's really not. And considering you haven't actually seen the course, I'm surprised you know the contents of it!
Also, you seem to think I'm marketing this course on BHW, which I'm not. Yes, I posted a link (now removed) earlier, when it naturally fit in the conversation, but apart from that, no, not really. In fact, the course is marketed at YouTubers, not IM'ers.

SpiderBlast said:

But still, you had to go through all this time to run this case study... for what? To find out how to rank videos?
Or to get people to your blog so you can sell them some shitty YT ranking course?

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Huh? No, this case study isn't about the course. The course went live about a month ago, you tool.

SpiderBlast said:

SO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS CUT AND DRY AND TO THE POINT.

How do >>> you, rank YT videos on YOUTUBE?
How do >>> you, rank YT videos on Google?

Don't give me all the specifics. Just write shit like "backlinks, social signals, views, etc".
You can save all the specifics for your spammy course.

Click to expand...

Well, it's a little difficult being "concise", without going into the details of the course.
But lets start with the basics: The tests were done on 5 different YouTube channels, on roughly 30 different videos. They were conducted over a time span of roughly 3 months, so any changes had time to settle in.

I won't bother replying to on to rank videos in Google, since I have never claimed, or currently claim, to be the master in this. But yes, I would use backlinks when ranking in Google, I've never said anything else.
To the first question:
First off you need to find a solid keyword. Personally, I like to use a mix between both the YouTube Keyword Tool, as well as the Google Keyword Tool. Why both? Because while the YouTube Keyword Tool is great for YouTube, you can't do global searches on it. For most YouTube channels, you don't care where the traffic is coming from, geographically, but just the amount, hence why I use both.

Then I make sure to include the keyword in the title, usually towards the beginning. I've had pretty decent success with longer titles, and EMD's doesn't seem to matter as much on YouTube, so I'm not to worried about them. For the description, I usually have a fairly high keyword density, more than I would on a website. I ensure that I link to other videos on YouTube, as well as other authority sites on the subject of the video.
For tags, I'll quote a thread on another forum, where someone asked me:
Lets say I make a video about golden bananas, in that case, my tags should look like this:
golden bananas, golden, bananas, yellow bananas, gold bananas, where to get golden bananas, how to get golden bananas, where to, how to, grow golden bananas, growing golden bananas, importing golden bananas,


And so forth. Focus on your keyword, not everything else.
Example of bad tags:
golden bananas, agriculture, canon 550d, vlog, youtube, educational, Danish, male vlogger, fruit,

After that, I'll get to work on the following: Annotations, (real) favs, likes, subs and favourites, (real) video replies (keyword related video replies, from non-spam channels, does amazing things!), playlists (both on my own channel, and playlists of other non-affiliated channels), playlist descriptions, video description on the playlist, featured channel video, channel description, and so on. If it's a tough keyword, I might throw some social media shares at it too.

Lastly, I make sure to encourage and engage with users, commenting and replying, and keeping a debate going.

Doing this, I've had my own video (Corporal Punishment in Japan) go "mini-viral", and top at getting 2000 views a day, I have a music cover at 40k views, and I made the video "Urban Legends in Japan" from ChillInKansai increase in views by just under 4000%, from 0-5 views a day, to a constant (and steady, for close to 4 months now) 45 views a day, making it the only video on his channel to go past 2k views.

IF I really wanted to build links, as I've said before, authority links that provide views, do most likely count. So if I was really in such a situation, then I would try and secure a guest blogging deal somewhere, which would allow me to embed the video.
"Don't give me all the specifics. Just write shit like "backlinks, social signals, views, etc".", hope I managed to give you what you wanted.

SpiderBlast said:

The problem with arguing with idiots like you. You can't give me a clear answer cause you're so tied up on people
buying your bullshit, that you will drag this debate on forever just for the traffic.

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I pretty much gave up on having an actual conversation with you, when you called me an idiot for agreeing with you. Which is also why I won't reply to the other points in your post. If you can't have a normal conversation without calling people names, I really can't be bothered.

Still confused why the link is here if you removed it (I presume you'e being facetious and meant hyper-link was removed).
...Also confused why you're making a statement as if people who utilize Youtube are different then "IM's" in general?

Considering inner-paging of Favourites\Likes\Replies (views... oh my!!) etc, as something that hasn't been otherwise noticed is a bit confusing as to why a case study is needed. You're essentially otherwise just reguritating "on-site" SEO for a youtube account\content.

If you didn't selflessly promote your site right off the bat as a "reference", I would have clicked Thanks perhaps, just a pat on the back.

dinkish said:

Still confused why the link is here if you removed it (I presume you'e being facetious and meant hyper-link was removed).
...Also confused why you're making a statement as if people who utilize Youtube are different then "IM's" in general?

Considering inner-paging of Favourites\Likes\Replies (views... oh my!!) etc, as something that hasn't been otherwise noticed is a bit confusing as to why a case study is needed. You're essentially otherwise just reguritating "on-site" SEO for a youtube account\content.

If you didn't selflessly promote your site right off the bat as a "reference", I would have clicked Thanks perhaps, just a pat on the back.

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The link that was removed, was in my second post, where I made a booboo by linking to a product. As far as I know, I can link to the blog post, right?
I would honestly gladly post it here, but as you can see, all the data is in tablets, so I'm not really sure how I would get it over here, in a decent fashion. If you have any advice on that, I'll gladly take it!

The quotes in the post show why it's needed - because I still often run into people, that insist on sending tons of backlinks to videos, to make them rank better in YouTube. This post wasn't made for the BHW community, per se, but for the group that reads the blog. I just thought I would be nice and share it here, and perhaps get a few readers back in return - lesson learned, next time I think I have some useful info, I should just post it everywhere BUT here.

My site wasn't the "reference", my site is literally where the info is. As I say, if you can tell me a neat way to import it all over here, I'll gladly edit the original post with it.

Bro u guys really writing paragraphs arguing?! Who cares! All this time could of been used making more $$$

ok...

let me share another YT gem in the rough here if you're as good as you say you are ... you'll get it

YT search query page