- Feb 3, 2021
- 1,142
- 452
Hi there!
I'm just wondering, what do you think about yt shorts? Or how does the algorithm work for shorts??
I'm just wondering, what do you think about yt shorts? Or how does the algorithm work for shorts??
What is your experience with YouTube shorts??
- Thread starter Lord of Skies
- Start date
sanssoleil
Registered Member
- Jun 16, 2014
- 51
- 12
I don't like YouTube Shorts, it looks like I'm using tiktok.
f.randell23
Registered Member
- May 22, 2021
- 77
- 48
Hey, actually have some experience with them so I'll share some info. When shorts were introduced in India only and were then gradually rolled out to Europe in fall 2020, there was a tangible algorithmic favour attached to them since they are the equivalent to TikTok or IG Reels. I uploaded around ten shorts in January on a channel for testing them out and gained around 15K views in a couple of days, I think two or three of them "blew up" (althugh on a small scale). So it actually did work pretty well and you just had to ensure to have the right quantity.
Right now, there's a bunch of downsides to them though, I'll list a couple of them so that you get an idea:
1. Shorts do not count into your 4k hour watchtime requirement when you start out.
2. They (as of now) cannot be monetized.
3. The algorithmic favor has mostly faded. There are channels that established this as a format for themselves and some of them do well (e.g. TikTokers with a YT presence) but randomly uploading videos won't get you anywhere anymore contrary to last fall and early winter.
4. The traffic you get from successful shorts to your channel remains within the short, since the short shelf doesn't try to interest the viewer in your channel. Instead, it tries to hook them as long as possible to shorts.
5. Subscribers from shorts are way less likely to watch your content than subscribers who came across your content the typical way. They just sub because they enjoyed one of your clips but the engagement is restricted to a minimum, so it is very unlikely that you appear in their sub box later on.
6. There has been a huge debate about how shorts impact the performance of your channel: What it definitely does is drive down your absolute watch time, which some say negatively impacts your channel performance. Others say that the only relevant metric should be average % viewed, which is not negatively impacted by shorts. Overall, it is unlikely that YouTube is trying to punish you for uploading them, but there are some actual negative consequences: If you upload a short, your viewers click on it, just to be disappointed by a clip that is just a few seconds long. If you do this multiple times, viewers may be less inclined to click your videos since they think it might just be another short.
To conclude: Shorts have lost their magic. You can still create successful channels around them, but the niche has gotten pretty competitive.
Right now, there's a bunch of downsides to them though, I'll list a couple of them so that you get an idea:
1. Shorts do not count into your 4k hour watchtime requirement when you start out.
2. They (as of now) cannot be monetized.
3. The algorithmic favor has mostly faded. There are channels that established this as a format for themselves and some of them do well (e.g. TikTokers with a YT presence) but randomly uploading videos won't get you anywhere anymore contrary to last fall and early winter.
4. The traffic you get from successful shorts to your channel remains within the short, since the short shelf doesn't try to interest the viewer in your channel. Instead, it tries to hook them as long as possible to shorts.
5. Subscribers from shorts are way less likely to watch your content than subscribers who came across your content the typical way. They just sub because they enjoyed one of your clips but the engagement is restricted to a minimum, so it is very unlikely that you appear in their sub box later on.
6. There has been a huge debate about how shorts impact the performance of your channel: What it definitely does is drive down your absolute watch time, which some say negatively impacts your channel performance. Others say that the only relevant metric should be average % viewed, which is not negatively impacted by shorts. Overall, it is unlikely that YouTube is trying to punish you for uploading them, but there are some actual negative consequences: If you upload a short, your viewers click on it, just to be disappointed by a clip that is just a few seconds long. If you do this multiple times, viewers may be less inclined to click your videos since they think it might just be another short.
To conclude: Shorts have lost their magic. You can still create successful channels around them, but the niche has gotten pretty competitive.
- Feb 3, 2021
- 1,142
- 452
I have seen some channels (built around shorts only) , getting alot of views on their shorts, how's that possible??
f.randell23
Registered Member
- May 22, 2021
- 77
- 48
As I said, it is possible to build successful channels around only shorts (recent examples are stevee and Feeding Steven, the latter is imported from TikTok too), but that shouldn't make you think that it is easy to succeed. There is just a lot of content in the form of shorts available at this point, so some of it naturally does very well, but it is by no means a "Get rich quick" (no monetization) or "Get famous easily" scheme. Imo TikTok still works a lot better for quickly growing a big page.
To precisely answer your question: The algorithm selects a short, puts it on the shelf and forces millions of people to watch it, no matter whether they like it or not (as opposed to regular video recommendations). Hence the great numbers of views.
Likri
Supreme Member
- Apr 22, 2020
- 1,212
- 830
Now youtube is giving money to shorts creators. they will send email to eligible channels. however i dont know how much they will send, but it will depends on the views and channel
f.randell23
Registered Member
- May 22, 2021
- 77
- 48
Thanks! I knew they had intentions to monetize them at some point after beta (that's why "as of now", wasn't quite up date there), interesting to hear they seem to start rolling it out.
my god what are you doing wrong. i have had 1M in the last 7 days uploading one every two or so days. choose a better niche.
- Feb 25, 2018
- 1,962
- 1,571
wow! whats your niche?
i don't want to rat myself out and saturate my market but its a "gaming tips" channel, so gaming i guess. with shorts the more popular the niche the better. as long as you can drive interaction you will soon be at the top of the niche. i must be one of the top gaming shorts creators by now, ive only been active for a couple of months. also sidenote, literally anyone can get started with shorts. my channel was only created a year ago so its not like i have a huge authority ranking. anyone can do shorts. if you have an idea, run with it. best of luck : )
- Feb 3, 2021
- 1,142
- 452
So what's your strategy?? What kinda tags do you use and how many?? Do you upload thumbnail or use what's autogenerated??
you can't choose the thumbnail for shorts in the shelf. as i said, i don't want to cuck myself out of views by giving everyone tips however you can control the thumnbail youtube chooses for the shelf. i know thats an oxymoron, but you can have influence over it with quite a success rate. think about how it may be generated. you want something good for the thumbnail, since as with any youtube video, watch time, ctr and interaction are key. i have my own private tools that i made for generating tags and thats all i want to say on that subject. tags are 100% important with shorts unlike regular videos, so use them the best you can. manually research keywords (vidiq helps to some extent) and from there work out a formula that works.
feel free to ask any more questions.
- Feb 3, 2021
- 1,142
- 452
How many hashtags do you use??
And what's the ratio of going viral on an entirely new channel??
hashtags dont matter for shorts, nor does tagging creators.
from my exp. 1 / 10 went "viral" (> 2k views) on a new channel. however my methods improved with time now i have plenty of shorts over 50k and one over 1 million. nearly every short gets over 20k in the first few days.
f.randell23
Registered Member
- May 22, 2021
- 77
- 48
Thanks for sharing, so insightful! I've never thought of ctr with shorts because you can't choose once you've activated the "short-chain" thing and the traffic you get on shorts from searches was far below that from the shelf, but it makes total sense that they also have ctr when you have these 3-4 shorts shown to you upon entering the shelf
glad i could help. is also appears that youtube has started showing shorts impression and click through in the studio for the first time! take this as a sign that it matters a lot. im assuming this because my impression went from 50k daily to almost a million, and if you were wondering my click through is ten percent, and has gone up since the change to youtube studio. here is a screenshot if you are interested, sorry i dont feel comfortable disclosing more, and i redacted some values as i don't really want identifying.
f.randell23
Registered Member
- May 22, 2021
- 77
- 48
Thanks once again, and I see your concerns with not disclosing more, I'd do the same. One more question on ctr:
What I find so fascinating about this though is that your audience seems to grow WHILE your ctr went up too, which is something I'm absolutely amazed by. Wouldn't that mean that youtube just got exceptionally good at identifying your exact audience and showing videos to exactly that group (or you were perhaps very good at telling youtube what to suggest them to)?
You're most likely better informed than me on this, so I'd love to hear your opinion: The holy question in ctr among youtubers always seems to be which ctr is actually good because a high ctr (especially smaller channels sometimes have up to 30-40) could mean that your audience is just very limited and everyone out of these few people seeing your videos in recommended clicks them, and a low one (3-4) can be good because it can be a sign for youtube showing your videos to a bigger audience out of which -- naturally -- a smaller percentage clicks them, which still amounts to more exposure in absolute terms. Both can also be interpreted vice versa though to some extent, and I assume that that's what happens to you, because 10% ctr is obviously very strong.
What I find so fascinating about this though is that your audience seems to grow WHILE your ctr went up too, which is something I'm absolutely amazed by. Wouldn't that mean that youtube just got exceptionally good at identifying your exact audience and showing videos to exactly that group (or you were perhaps very good at telling youtube what to suggest them to)?
no worries. yeah ctr varies massively, by niche, audience size and more. my ctr went up recently just because youtube studio started including the shorts in impressions and click through as far as i can tell. here is a graph of mine. it started off hyper inflated because i made a bot to monetize my channel that counted as actual browse feature, suggested and search impressions and subsequent clicks, so take the earlier numbers with a grain of salt.
about youtube identifying your audience, yeah 100% thats what the shorts algo does better than the regular one. shorts get promoted in waves of views, usually 3. after which it decides if its gonna launch it into the algorithm or not (pic related, not the best example sorry). also after a while my shorts have stopped with this pattern. i doubt this is due to algo changes and more so down to my videos having a consistently large audience to promote to with millions of returning viewers, it has found my audience and no longer needs to test videos. also this pattern appears on a smaller scale, its like a self replicating fractal. it starts of first with say 300 views per time, and goes wild from there. ill try to add some more examples in a minute.
edit: actually there may have been an algo change, one of my old shorts got put back on the shelf after the initial "blow up" which i have never seen happen before.
edit: and here is what new shorts look like, these are the waves on the small scale after initial upload. the waves get bigger and bigger until you cant see the earlier waves. the flat looking bit at the start even had waves.
Last edited: