This is something I got wondering about after my wife posted a home video of one of my recent races on YouTube. I linked to the video in a thread I posted on the main forum, asking advice about running form. Total number of views is, at the moment, 29, which probably includes just myself, family members, and readers of the thread who clicked on the link.
So here’s what I’ve noticed about the “Related Videos” - some new stuff started showing up after I posted the link. Most of the original stuff was related to words in the title (Polar Bear 5K), showing various polar bear swims, videos of bears, etc. Now there is a Powercranks video concerning running form - the same video that Frank Day linked to in his response to my question. Additionally, there are links to the video for Mike Doughty’s “27 Jennifers,” and “Psycho complains to city about ‘rogue helicopters.’” These videos were both linked by threads started by JenHS, who also participated in my thread. Another recent addition is “Keiren Perkins 400m Free WR 1994” - not especially related to my video, and nothing that I’d seen before, but something that sounds like it came from the recent views of an ST member.
I figured that with the limited number of total views, I could mess with things a little to experiment - browsing back and forth between my race video and various other, unrelated videos. This doesn’t seem to have any effect. So how does it work? Is YouTube chasing the links back to where they came from, then looking for other links? Is it tracking the browsing histories of IP addresses?
Any theories?
----edit----
Anybody willing to participate in an experiment? I’m posting a link to my race video here. You can watch it if you really want to, though I don’t expect it to be of any great interest to anybody other than my family and friends - and maybe not even them. But that’s not the point: I’m wondering whether the presence of any other YouTube links on this thread will put them in the “Related Videos.”
So if you’re game, please post any sort of random Youtube videos on this thread. Please try to keep some semblance of good taste - I mean, I want to still be able to direct family and friends to the original video.
Tibbs, you paying attention?