Study: How (and why) Google ranks videos differently from the way YouTube does

Have you ever been served a specific set of YouTube videos in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages, only to find that the exact same search yields different results when performed on YouTube?

Well, according to a new report from Stone Temple Consulting, when Google returns multiple YouTube videos in the results pages, the ranking order between Google and YouTube varies 56.8 percent of the time.

Stone Temple Consulting’s Eric Enge performed a deep dive on the topic to see why this was happening and what could be done about it.

Image used courtesy of Stone Temple Consulting.

Not only did Enge find that more than half the time Google results have multiple YouTube videos, which rank differently on YouTube, but even when just one YouTube video is ranking in Google results, there is a 55.2 percent chance that it isn’t the first result for that query on YouTube.

The hypothesis posed by Enge for this phenomena is that the various goals of each site are quite different and that each has its own KPIs.

While Google tries to match users up with relevant content, YouTube has a different job — to entertain. The study does a great job analyzing both Google and YouTube’s approach and the various inherent differences between each.

Head over to Stone Temple Consulting for the full study write-up, which takes a lengthy look into user intent between networks, advertising and the traditional YouTube value metrics, and even has detailed optimization checklists for those looking to rank on both YouTube and Google.

This is a must-read for anyone looking to use video to boost their search marketing efforts (or vice versa).