Friday, March 26, 2010

YouTube "Source of Views" definitions


Recently was asked what the View's types in YouTube's Insights tool mean. Shows up in tables as "Source of Views". I did some searching and couldn't find any simple list or definitions.

Did some digging and here's the results of my analysis.

Source TypeDefinition

Embedded Player
embedded player view on another site
YouTube Channel Page Player player on channel page - featured video
Youtube Other played on youtube directly from navigating to page
Advertising played for advertisment on youtube
Related Video Showed up as related video to another video and was played
Mobile Devices played on mobile device player
External Linksexternal site linking directly to video player page
Viral/Other No referrer - direct navigation to video
YouTube Search found via youtube search
Google Search found via google search
Google Video Search found via google video search
Subscriber played within my account/subscriptions module
Promoted Featured video

From the all videos' view you can drill down to a specific video, and from there go to the "Discovery" section for that video. Once looking at "Discovery" for a specific video these headings allow you to drill down and see the exact sites that were creating the traffic.



Update
Since this was originally posted, YouTube has updated Insight. Here's what you now see in YouTube:
YouTube View Types Screenshot

2 comments:

Unknown said...

what would be the definition for source type "watch"?

Rob Fuller said...

Hi Esin,

YouTube has updated Insight since my post, but I don't see a source type "watch". Maybe you can send me an email with more information.

Regards,
Rob