What is it? Complicated. And that’s being kind.

Youtube search uses a combination of tags and social ranking factors. For starters, everyone (and this was confirmed by google) agrees that descriptive keywords are important. Google can’t crawl your video so it relies heavily on your title, description, and tags to determine what your video is about. Therefore, be very, very descriptive. Don’t be spammy though- Google knows if your tags are relevant or not.

After that, things get much, much more complicated. While those 3 factors form a basis for your rankings and can be enough to rank you for a weird, unpopular term like maori cultural show (i’m #3), ranking for something more competitive is much different.

For something competitive, Youtube relies on a complex and shifting system involving social factors, including:

Video views
External Links
Channel Popularity
Video Responses
Rating
Comments
Favorites
Channel Subscribers
Video Age
Embedded version of the video
How many people watch until the end
That’s how a video on can out rank an older video on

In my opinion, these factors represent about 70% of what Youtube looks for in ranking on a competitive term. What are the most important factors? Well, based on my own experiments with my channel, I would say this is the order:

Rating
Favorites
Comments
Responses
Views
Video Age
Channel Popularity
Channel Subscribers
Embedded version of the video
External Links
How many people watch until the end

I rank them in this order because Youtube seems to be about social interaction with the videos so those videos that produce the most interactions will then move up the search results or get video responses and thus more views. A video with a lot of views is of course popular and should rank high but you can manipulate view counts. My video on Scottish musicians has over 17,000 views….thanks to stumble upon not Youtube.

Next I think your user popularity is important. This is Youtube version of trustrank. Just like Google automatically ranks anything high because they are a trusted website, if you have a channel with a lot of followers, high views, and lots of socially popular videos, Youtube trusts you and thus ranks your videos higher. Back in the day, I remember there was a big to do about this because youtube changed how they ranked videos and it took importance off this so a lot of people were upset. I still think this is important though. The other factors are so minor they aren’t worth going into detail over.

Here’s an example of all of this playing out. Take the search “la tomatina.” Let’s look at the top 4 plus my video:

1. Video Number #1: This by Journeymanpictures. The channel is huge with over 79,000 subscribers and a million views. The video has 61,000 views, 59 ratings, 101 comments, and 214 favorites.
2. Video Number #2: This is by brendanmcwilliams. This channel small with 6 subscribers and 120,00 views. The video has 103,000 views, 54 comments, 44 favorites, and 30 ratings.
3. Video Number #3: This is by awheewall. The channel has 9 subscribers and 130,00 views. The video has 7,000 views, 6 comments, 10 favorites, and 13 ratings.
4. Video Number #4: This video is interesting. It’s way newer than anything on the first page but it ranks #4. Look at the channel, it has 99 uploads, 1500 subscribers, and close to a million views. The video has 2000 views, 13 comments, 5 favorites and 6 ratings.

Now my video is #6 when i looked it up. My channel has 123 subscribers and about 60,000 views. The video has 15,000 views, 14 comments, 27 favorites, and 10 ratings.

So Video #1, despite having less views than #2 has the most comments, ratings, favorites and comes from a strong channel. Clearly a winner. Video #2 has the second most so easy to see why it is #2. But why do video #3 and #4 outrank me if I have more views? My theory is that video #3 is about even with ratings but the channel is popular and video is older. So this is why video age is important. It’s not the most popular video but it is an old video and just like in Google search, age is an important factor.

And #4? This is all about trustrank. That channel is very popular and well viewed so in a short time, it’s new video could rank very high with just a few comments, ratings, and favorites.

So that being said, let’s do a little quid pro quo and test this all out more. I’m really interested in getting my video on la tomatina and I want to see if a new video, like mine on the great barrier reef, can move up quickly with sudden rush of all those social factors i just talked about as it ranks nowhere now!

If you could star them, favorite them, and leave a comment on both of them, I will return the favor for videos of your choice. Let’s help each other here.

If you want to subscribe to my youtube channel, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/keppiezbt

My findings? It still blows.

I get about 100 visitors per month from blogsherpa. Now, it’s not a big deal. I’m only tagging posts I won’t seo so I don’t have to fight myself in the rankings but even still, this shows that the program doesn’t offer any huge benefit. Can anyone out there show they are getting substantial traffic from these?

Conclusion? I’ll tag my photos. For 100 visitors, the 3 seconds is worth it. But I won’t be tagging anything I’d like to get search traffic for now or in the future. It still is not worth it and I still find quality control issues there. Letting everyone and anyone in reduces the traffic impact and makes the system pretty pointless.

You know where I find good traffic? Thorntree. Sure, the forum is a mess and people spam it and there are silly postings like “can i find atms in thailand?” but the volume of people that use it leads to great click throughs. Whenever I post links on thorntree, I get about 100-200 people. In fact when I am active on the forum (which isn’;t often because of time issues), I can pull between 200-300 visitors per day from thorntree.

THAT is where to get traffic. Not blogsherpa. Reply to posts, put relevant links into them, and watch the clicks. Just don’t spam them with links…b/c it’s annoying.

added bonus? LP thorntree links are do-follow.

Now, I can’t go number #2 an hour before I land, my water bottle is probably classified as a biohazard (but it’s still ok to keep next to the security area), the woman at the x-ray machine is still NOT looking at it, and the TSA is gonna start screening more babies now while the jittery guy with no luggage gets to go right through.

I think everyone who works at the TSA or Homeland security should be replaced by a team of monkeys. I have more faith in them than I do whoever is running the ship now. Now they are creating more rules to keep us safe, which won’t do anything to keep us safe. Why? Because all the rules in the world don’t matter when your staff reads at a preschool level.

Let’s see: Guy gets on a plane to America with no luggage, jittery, named Abdudlalajlah, is on the terror watch list, and his dad calls an embassy to warn he might blow up a plane. What happens? He’s let right through and almost blows up a plane.

What idiot didn’t think this was a potential hazard?

For starters, he’s on the terror watch list!!! What the hell is he doing on a flight anyways?

Secondly, his dad calls to say his soon might blow something up BEFORE his son got on a plane. Why didn’t anyone question him?

Third, who the fuck gets on an international flight with no checked luggage? MAJOR FLAG right there!!

How about instead of more rules we pay people to actually do a good job? I’m ok with higher taxes if that is where it is going! I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone through the airport and watched as the xray machine person WASN’T looking at the screen. Hello! That’s where security starts!

Or how about the water bottles? If it’s so unsafe, why is there a big pile next to me in security? Wouldn’t you want to remove that in case all of a sudden my poland springs bottle went nuclear? I mean you never know what could happen when water, plastic, coke, and gatorade come together.

This whole thing is going to produce a lot of show and even less security. All the rules in the world aren’t going to help us until we start getting competent people working security and we have the government actually taking those phone calls and memos (remember bush’s august memo?) seriously. Our government is great at insecurity but still not so good at the security thing.

Until then, let’s just hire the isreali’s to protect our airports. No one ever gets on their planes with even a dull pencil.

End Rant!

I’m going to New Zealand next week. I’ll be there until about January 18th and then, as planned, I’ll still go to Australia to explore queensland and take care of some business in Melbourne. I also managed to get myself a free Kiwi Experience pass for my trip around the country. I might also try to get a Stray Travel pass too. I hear the Kiwi experience is full of college kids who want to party and while I enjoy a good party, I’m not sure I’ll want 45 days of it. However, like any good journalist, I must investigate so I can accurately report back to my readers.

Even though I said I am not going to use Blogsherpa, I’m testing it out again with photos and blog posts I don’t want to rank on google for. They made some changes to the program so I’m checking to see if I can get any consistent bump in traffic. Results are inconclusive right now. I’ll report back again in a month.

I’m also using Facebook ads to see if I can get people to my fanpage. Results are complete failure. I’m still playing with it though to see if I can hit upon a demographic that works. So far females from the US between the ages of 18-24 click through the most. There is so much potential in Facebook I’m going to make this work. Expect a long blog post on it when I am finished. I suspect when I give away a trip to Costa Rica in January, I’ll have more success with that. But I’m not going to give any more details about that….just yet.

I’m also going to try FB ads for my ebooks.

I’m also trying LP thorntree. While it is possibly the worst forum in the world, there is just so much ridiculous traffic there I’m seeing if I can up my clicks and traffic from there. I mean each posting, no matter how crappy, gets like 500 views. There has to be a use for it! Reports on that later.

I also wrote a new ebook on how to create a travel blog. Take a look. It’s only four dollars.

In non web work related news, I’m excited to go to NZ to meet Craig and Linda from Indietravelpodcast and see some old friends who live in Christchurch. I’m obsessed with the British band La Roux.

I’ll be speaking at TBEX ’10 next June. If you are a travel blogger or just someone with an interest, you should come. Last years event was the first time there was a “travel blogger” conference and this year’s event looks like it is going to be even better. It’s two days with a lot of workshops and talks. Come!

I have two other big big big big projects in the works but I want to keep those a secret. All I will say is one involves helping travel bloggers get free stuff and the other involves sending someone on the trip of a life time.

Other than that besides working, traveling, and buying bootleg movies in Bangkok, I lead a boring life and don’t do much else. Sorry for the boring blog update.

Ohh but I was named one of the ten sexiest twitterers…I should put that on my business card!

Now until Nov 7th: Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich, Vienna
Nov 7-Dec 3- Bangkok
Dec 3rd to Mid January 2010- New Zealand
Mid Jan to Feb 28 2010- Australia
March 1 to April 30th- Indonesia/Malaysia/Thailand (Songkran!)
May 1-July 30th- SUMMER IN EUROPE! (Greece, Italy, Portugal)

After that, it’s a return to the US. I think I am going to rent a place in NYC for a month or so and then drive across the country. I’d like to do Central America after that but I don’t know. That is too far out for me to plan right now.

If anyone lives in these areas or is going to travel to these parts of the world around these times, drop me a line and let’s meet up!

But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve tested it, the more I’ve realized it’s a raw deal for me (and other bloggers). While I think the guy who runs it, Matt C, has really good intentions, I don’t believe the bigwigs above him do or are really looking to connect with bloggers. This has just turned into a way to get free content. So Ive decided to no longer going to contribute. Here’s why:

• Something for nothing. You are giving LP your full RSS feed so they get your whole article. Free content for them, nothing for you. Google adsense is placed next to your feeds but I’ve found that your click through rate is TINY and you don’t get much money from it. Also, if you use adsense normally, this will lower your CTR and thus your payments. Moreover, most of these pages don’t even get cached by Google unless they are really old. Since they aren’t in the Google index, you don’t even get the benefit of a backlink from lonely planet. Then when they do get cached, since the Lonely Planet brand is better than yours, they will out rank you FOR YOUR OWN CONTENT! That’s not a problem if you put some work into building backlinks to page- you’ll get above them but your doing double the work to beat the article you wrote? That’s sort of crappy.
• No Traffic.  If people are able to read your full feed, why would they bother to click over to your site? I’ve found my Lonely Planet traffic is about 3-5 people per day. Considering I have over 25 posts on “blogsherpa” and usually 1/2 the traffic I get comes from the forum I post in, the traffic value of Blogsherpa is crap. I bet most people aren’t getting anything. In fact, I get a much better conversion from their cluttered forum than I do from Blogsherpa and I don’t have to fight myself in the Google search results.
• Quality Control.  Let’s be honest- some people are just better writers than others. In the beginning, there was a small group of people who were part of this. But lately everyone is allowed to do it. There is a video that tells you how the program works and let’s you know that as long as you can write a sentence, you get in. Not exactly the highest standards in the world. I’m sure some blogs get denied but I have noticed a large, large number of new sites in the system.  Now, as a branding thing, I think it’s awful for LP because it sullies their brand but that is my business mind at work. But for a blogger, it’s awful for two reasons: First, you get crowded out. With so many blogs out there, unless you are blogging about some unknown destination no one goes to, your blog is going to be just one blog out of many. One popular destination pages like Thailand, there’s a million blog posts there. If your work isn’t at the top, you aren’t going to get much traffic.  Secondly, not all bloggers treat their website with “journalistic integrity.” Many bloggers considered themselves online journalists (I do) and really go out of their way to produce quality work. However, a lot of people write about their trip and it’s mostly “hey mom, look! I’m in Italy”. I love to read those blogs and follow abut 50 in my RSS and, while they do find some cool stuff, in terms of planning my trip, I wouldn’t exactly call these people experts and wouldn’t want to use them for trip planning.

  So while it may sound elitist, I work very hard on my site and my brand. I don’t want to be lumped in with “hey mom” travel blogs on Lonely Planet. Having those style blogs on Lp takes away from the public perception of the value of the all blogs there. If people think some of the sites aren’t quality travel planning sites, they will think all of the sites aren’t. I work too hard on my brand to have it perceived as just another “hey mom I’m in italy” type of blog. When I’m traveling, I put a lot of work into finding budget deals and getting information. And while I’m not 100% there yet, I like to feel my site is more than simple travel blog so to potentially be perceived otherwise doesn’t sound good to me.

I think the idea of reaching out to travel bloggers is great and I’m glad there is an effort on the part of LP to do so but I think how this program is run right now gives lonely planet a bunch of free content and you a bunch of nothing. Most people are going to be enamored with the idea of having content on Lonely Planet but if you really think about it, you aren’t getting anything out of it.  Could this be a great traffic generator? It sure could. LP mentioned me in their community blog and I saw 200 new visitors to my website. Blogsherpa could have the same effect but it requires substantial changes to their program and I think a much broader commitment than the big shots at Lonely Planet probably want to make right now. If there were some changes to the problem and I bit more visibility for the blogger on the LP website, this would be great. But as it stands now, you get the short end of the stick.

What happened to the party that supports universal health care, the end of the drug war, the environment, cutting the budget, and cutting military spending? Most Americans are for it. Why don’t the democrats sack up and do what is right. Democrats are the new republicans and the republicans are the new crazy!

I love Obama and think he’s our best bet and believe he wants a lot more than he says but it’s not the republicans who stand in his way, it’s douchebags in the democratic party. The last climate bill, heralded as a major change, is 1200 pages long and has more holes in it than the ozone layer it’s trying to save!

And that’s why Barack will fail domestically. Because Congress is going stand in his way of making the real fucking change that most americans are simply too stupid to know they need and Congress is too scared and beholden to lobbyists to do it.

Obama should use his clout to force down the throat of people universal health care, legalized pot, a smaller military, better education, renewable energy, and better infrastructure. Why? Because we are living in the 21st first century, not the 20th century and every other country is leaving us behind.

We spend the most money for health care and are #37th in the world for it!! It costs 3,000 more dollars to build a car in America because of health care costs. That’s why we build them all in Mexico and Canada. We all know health care is broken but when we talk about a public/private plan like most of Europe has, people talk about a government bureaucrat telling you what health care you will have! Someone already tells me what health care I can have- it’s called my HMO. And it costs them 20% to do that when medicare spends 3% on admin costs.

And let’s face- the war on drugs failed. We can tax the hell out of pot and make a ton of money doing it! Because who gives a shit if dad tokes one up in front of the TV after a day at work and I’m not paying to keep Grandpa Joe in jail because he wanted to cure his glaucoma. Isn’t that a republican issue anyways? What happened to keeping the government out of people’s lives? Weren’t they for that? I guess Jesus got in the way of principle.

Moreover, defense secretary Gates said we spend more money than the next 11 nations combined on defense and 9 of them are our allies!! Something tells me Germany and Japan aren’t gonna bomb us anytime soon and England isn’t gonna try to take back the 13 colonies! You ever think maybe…just maybe..most people hate us because we have a base EVERYWHERE! The anti-war party is now the pro war party and the isolationist party is now “lets kill everybody with nukes party.”

And education- after teaching in America, i realized we are so far behind the rest of the world, I’d never in a million years send a kid to public school in America. We cut, cut, and cut. And we don’t fire teachers when they do an awful job. And when obama says this- who attacks him? The right? Nope. THE DEMOCRATS! Because god forbid we made each state teach the same thing and made teacher accountable when they failed or paid them for when they did good.

Seriously, being back in America the last month and watching the news as made me realize the US is truly fucked and most Americans are too busy watching MJs funeral or listening to Glenn Beck to see the forest through the trees. And when Obama says if we do this, we’ll be better off long term but right now, it’s gonna be painful- politicians and Americans whine and whine and whine because they have been told their whole lives that nothing bad will ever happen and they will never have to sacrifice. So instead we don’t fix the roads, keep farm subsidies, and put it all on the visa because god fucking forbid, America, you actually had to pay for the stuff you wanted the government to do.

And so that is why Obama will fail because, at the end of the day, Americans don’t want to sacrifice, they want a bunch of stuff they don’t want to pay for, and Congress wants to protect their piece of the pie rather than do what is right and needed. And so 4 years from now, we’ll probably elect Obama again simply b/c the republicans won’t have a better option and Americans will still wonder why life isn’t better when it’s because you won’t really let Obama do what he wants to do to help you.

Because if we did that then we might actually become a modern country that lives in the 21st century. You know sort of like Taiwan, where you can get country wide wifi, free health care, and cheap education. That America, is something we should all try to aim for!

End rant…

My location independent lifestyle affords me the ability to do what I want, when I want. So I do that and I end up spending a lot of money. Not so good. I’ve pretty much spent all that I’ve earned this year, which isn’t good. Next week, I meet with my accountant to figure out how I’m going to pay my taxes and what I am going to owe. I’m also going to figure out how to write off my travels as a business expense…I mean after all, I run travel websites and all.

Realizing that if I don’t save any money soon my trip to Europe is not gonna go as smoothly, I’ve decided to shelve some of my trips around the US while I am. I’m going use the fact I’m staying with my parents to really start saving money. No more freewheeling spending. Sticking to the budget.

I leave for Europe on August 23rd and by then I want to save 5,000 dollars as a rainy day fun. That way in case I have any dip in income, I’ll have some money. It’s also a wake up call that, maybe I should go and spend all my money. I’m at the point in life where I should have a savings. I don’t. Maybe it’s time to do one adult thing….

I’m already weirded out by the big cares and huge roads. And it did take me a few minutes to remember which coins had which value to them! lol.

But home is going to be a busy time. I only plan on being here for about two months and I have a lot to do in that two months.

I need to:

a) stabilize my income a bit more to ensure I start to actually save more than I spend!

b) Get so far ahead of my work that when I go backpack again, I can have fun and not work so much.

c) Start planning my next backpacking trip. I need to work on the rough outline of my trip to Europe and book my accommodation for La Tomatina and Oktoberfest.

d)head to the Travel Blog Exchange Conference in Chicago

e) find my way to NYC, LA, San Fran, and points unknown

f) Have a high school reunion

g) find time in all of that to see my friends!

It’s going to be an action packed 2 months.