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How Google Ranks Videos

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hello-kate-monster dept.

Nirnimesh writes "Google reveals their ranking system for videos on the official blog. The system lists videos according to their country-wide popularity. From the article: 'We use algorithms to identify videos that are suddenly becoming popular, and then rank them based on how popular they are -- and how suddenly they became popular. We've been using this list internally, and now it's ready to share with you, so check it out. Right now this feature highlights videos from close to 40 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and New Zealand, to name a few.'"

69 comments

  1. No pigeons? by MarkByers · · Score: 4, Funny

    And I was so sure they were using a team of trained pigeons...

    --
    I'll probably be modded down for this...
    1. Re:No pigeons? by demongeek · · Score: 1

      Well, if monkeys can write Shakespeare, surely a team of highly trained bobbing-head birds could do it...

    2. Re:No pigeons? by markild · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And I was so sure they were using a team of trained pigeons...
      Nah.. That's just for regular web-pages.

      That's what makes this so special. They actually had to sit down and make an algorithm.
      --
      Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
      Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
    3. Re:No pigeons? by gerrysteele · · Score: 1
      NO.. it was pigeons who decided that every time someone at Google or Apple took a breath of air that it was newsworthy.


      I mean come on... IT ISN'T NEWS!

    4. Re:No pigeons? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "official Google-blog" my ass.

      Google ownn Blogger, and its official blog is on Blogspot - does that make sense?

    5. Re:No pigeons? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google ownn Blogger, and its official blog is on Blogspot - does that make sense?

      Why, yes, it does. Blogger was the name of the blog creation program that Google acquired. Blogspot was the name of the blog-hosting site owned by the people that made Blogger. When Google bought that company (forgot the name), they acquired both Blogger and Blogspot.

    6. Re:No pigeons? by EmoryBrighton · · Score: 1

      Did you notice the last country in the list is named "Viet Nam" ?

      ...
      <option value="usa">United States</option>
      <option value="ven">Venezuela</option>
      <option selected value="vnm">Viet Nam</option>

      --
      Rule 2: Writing a spec is like writing code for a brain to execute.
    7. Re:No pigeons? by richdun · · Score: 2, Funny

      My money was on manatees.

    8. Re:No pigeons? by michelcultivo · · Score: 1

      No, they were using a team of trained CowBoyNeals. This is why the poor quality of the videos.

      --
      http://www.michel.eti.br
  2. How hard could it possibly be to... by demongeek · · Score: 1

    How hard could it possibly be to merely take object X's statistics page, and compare the n unique pagehits versus every other one?

    1. Re:How hard could it possibly be to... by moonbender · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's not hard. That's also not what they do, apparently. They actually try to detect popular videos before they are popular. That way a current video gets a higher rank than an old fad that got 2 billion downloads over the years. Think measuring acceleration instead of speed. That's probably not very hard, either. But the resulting page is still pretty cool.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    2. Re:How hard could it possibly be to... by ickeicke · · Score: 1
      That way a current video gets a higher rank than an old fad that got 2 billion downloads over the years.
      The why is "The MAC Gamer" in 4th place? Because Google does not assess the content of the video. If I re-upload "an old fad that got 2 billion downloads over the years", Google does not know that it's old and if a lot of people see it, Google thinks that it's some hot new video.
      --
      Firehed - Unfortunately, thanks to medical breakthroughs, common sense is not as common as it once was.
    3. Re:How hard could it possibly be to... by moonbender · · Score: 1

      That's true. Hard to find a way around that. I suppose that a video that really is hot and new will have a different download character - exponential growth, maybe - than an old hot video, which assumedly would have a constant, semi-high number of downloads. Maybe they work it out that way, maybe they don't.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  3. Same old, same old... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'We use algorithms to identify videos that are suddenly becoming popular, and then rank them based on how popular they are"

    That's exactly the same as the search engine: "We use algorithms to determine how popular a page is!". How about just telling us the fricking algorithm instead of giving us this same crap over and over again?

    1. Re:Same old, same old... by 42Penguins · · Score: 1

      Trade Secret(tm)

    2. Re:Same old, same old... by 26199 · · Score: 1

      Pagerank has some pretty good information publically available:

      Pagerank Explained

      That at least covers a big chunk of what Google does.

  4. Barbie Girl by rogerramrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think the algorithm is quite ready for prime time yet,
    seeing that currently the most popular video on Google is of a chubby nerdy tranvestite playbacking a song of Aqua

    1. Re:Barbie Girl by TadZimas · · Score: 1, Funny

      You obviously haven't been on the internet long enough.
      Chubby nerdy tranvestites ARE the most popular thing on the internet.
      Hands down.
      Followed with Songs by Aqua at a distant second.

    2. Re:Barbie Girl by Pollardito · · Score: 1

      no kidding, yet another recipe and ranking page built as a feedback loop. people download the top thing on the list to see what the hell other people liked about it. until they can include in their ranking criteria the number of people that stopped the download 20 seconds into the video, it won't really be a list of "things that people liked the most" but instead the "things that people thought they might like the most"

    3. Re:Barbie Girl by julesh · · Score: 1

      Not just that, if you look through the pages there are about 20 videos in them that are all people singing this song. WTF?

  5. "Algorithms and ranking system" by GillBates0 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    We use algorithms to identify videos that are suddenly becoming popular, and then rank them based on how popular they are -- and how suddenly they became popular.

    Seriously, this isn't all that cool (one might even say lame) even for news from Google. Even a simple (video_rank = num_video_views where num_video_views >threshold) would work from what I read from the description.

    But then, they just posted it on their blog, it's the "blogosphere" that blows/hypes it out of proportion.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
    1. Re:"Algorithms and ranking system" by Temporal · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, it's a whole lot more complicated and interesting than you think. The idea is that videos which have been steadily popular for a long time shouldn't show up, but videos which have become popular recently should. So, you don't see the same old boring videos every day like you do with the top 100 list.

    2. Re:"Algorithms and ranking system" by Shemmie · · Score: 1

      Ahhhh, so you times it all by 1/How_long_has_this_been_around ?

    3. Re:"Algorithms and ranking system" by Temporal · · Score: 1

      That would not find videos which have been around for a year but just became popular yesterday.

    4. Re:"Algorithms and ranking system" by kesuki · · Score: 1

      Yes, that's what's really cool, because i've seen my nephew use certain video sites before he just does a quick google search, loads the same video, Every time. he shows it to everyone, and loads it over and over again. just last weekend he loaded the same video 12 times in one day by my count. a couple of the people he showed liked it, but for the most part they were bored of it quickly.

      because there are a lot of people who act like that the 'top 100' lists usually become the stagnant tripe that a handful of people who are 'easily amused' and have the free time to constantly reload the same content. having a page rank code that helps prevent that stagnation is very useful for videos, especially.

      --
      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
  6. I wonder how accurate this is. by micheas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you look at what google publishes about pagerank and compare what they say with the search results returned by google.com you will notice discrepencies.

    For example google claims that they do not return urls that contain '&id=' but that is clearly not the case. (Joomla and Mambo sites without seo enabled would have substantially fewer pages returned than they do if this was the case.)

    I have come to feel that I can trust google about like I can trust my own contries military. (after independent verifiaction, and I need some reason to believe second source is not compromised.) But there are gems in the statements so I read them and after I am done reading I have more questions than before.

    This looks like a small glimps into one component of pagerank. But the article is pretty light on substance.

    --
    Work bio at MMWD
  7. Nothing like destroying an early beta by baadger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So they rank video's by how _suddenly_ they become popular...and we go an put it up for a Slashdotting. Good luck unraveling them stats Googlers.

    1. Re:Nothing like destroying an early beta by tibike77 · · Score: 1

      Hey, nothing better in the early "open" beta stages than a massive stress test, if you ask me ;)

      --
      By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
  8. Hmmm by Laurent+Van+Winckel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The algorithm doesn't seem to be quite ready, as I'm not really pleased by the rank of some videos. Anyway, the movers top list seem to work fine, I'm seeing many World Cup videos :)

  9. I'm flabergasted by suv4x4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, maybe it's not Google who hypes this up. Maybe they just posted it in a blog and the community took it up.

    Every single little thing Google does, no matter how trivial, is reported to take down Microsoft and take over the world.

    But COME ON, is this really worth an article on Slashdot:

    [we] rank them based on how popular they are

    Shit they better patent it before someone else figures it out!
    It's only literally every site with plenty of items that can be sorted based on popularity.

    1. Re:I'm flabergasted by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Funny

      But COME ON, is this really worth an article on Slashdot?

      We are geeks. We have seen Google come from nothing to the best piece of real estate on the web. Google has changed our vocabulary. A new verb is now in it, called "google". Kinda like the "slashdot effect" and others.

      I mean, check out what is "news" to the rest of the world -- http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=paris+h ilton&btnG=Search+News

      A dumb blond wrecking her car...

    2. Re:I'm flabergasted by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We are geeks... I mean, check out what is "news" to the rest of the world. A dumb blond wrecking her car...

      I find this especially ironic. People care about Paris Hilton's car crash not because car crashes are particularly rare, but because Paris Hilton is really popular.

      And you're reasoning that Google ordering items by popularity is very important, not because ordering by popularity is particularly rare, but because Google is really popular.

      But you can always find comfort in the idea that we're "the geeks" and "the rest of the world" is just plain dumb and undeserving attention.

    3. Re:I'm flabergasted by rm999 · · Score: 1

      I guess geeks are not so different from teens - instead of worshipping the newest pop star and everything little thing he/she does, we worship websites and every little thing they do.

      But why? I hate to say it, but I almost understand the teens better than I do my fellow geeks.

    4. Re:I'm flabergasted by Colz+Grigor · · Score: 1

      Does anyone else find it humorous that it was through this article that I learned that Paris Hilton was in a car crash? ::Colz Grigor

    5. Re:I'm flabergasted by kfg · · Score: 1

      Who's Paris Hilton?

      KFG

    6. Re:I'm flabergasted by bobthesloth · · Score: 1

      Ah, now this is the correct response.

    7. Re:I'm flabergasted by r3m0t · · Score: 1

      What's a car crash?

    8. Re:I'm flabergasted by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      I find this especially ironic. People care about Paris Hilton's car crash not because car crashes are particularly rare, but because Paris Hilton is really popular.

      Its not ironic. All popular people are popular simply because they are popular.

    9. Re:I'm flabergasted by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

      Does anyone else find it humorous that it was through this article that I learned that Paris Hilton was in a car crash?

      Maybe no since I, and most of us here did too.

    10. Re:I'm flabergasted by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

      Its not ironic. All popular people are popular simply because they are popular.

      This is not the thing I'm saying is ironic. Read the whole post.

    11. Re:I'm flabergasted by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      I find this especially ironic. People care about Paris Hilton's car crash not because car crashes are particularly rare, but because Paris Hilton is really popular.
      And you're reasoning that Google ordering items by popularity is very important, not because ordering by popularity is particularly rare, but because Google is really popular.

      1- Like rain on a wedding day.

      2- For crying out loud, WHY is google popular VS why is the dumb blonde popular? THAT is the freaking difference.

      Google is popular because it works well, the article is about how it works.
      Paris Hilton is popular because she's got money for self promotion. She's a vapid waste of carbon who should be ignored.

      P.S. Had not heard of her car trouble before you mentioned her.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  10. Is this how Digg works? by Zaphod2016 · · Score: 1

    I realize it may be blasphemy to discuss digg on /. but what the hell- it's sat afternoon and I'm already 25% drunk.

    Isn't this is exactly how Digg assigns stories to the home page? Not based on number of diggs, but rather, how quickly an item was dugg.

    --
    barack to the future?
  11. Re:Surpised by Free Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am forced to admit this is all true. How do these trolls find out all the details about my personal life? They must be stalking me!!!!!

    Sincerly,

    ESR

  12. I've never been so embarrassed in my life. by born_to_live_forever · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm from Denmark, so naturally my first thought was to see which vids were considered most popular in Denmark, according to Google. The results were disheartening, embarrassing, but far from surprising.

    Crazy Frog.

    Dozens and dozens of crappy variations of a done-to-death meme.

    Kill me now, and get it over with.

    --

    - Peter Ravn Rasmussen

    1. Re:I've never been so embarrassed in my life. by lagfest · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh it's not that bad, only 44 out of the top 60 vids are Crazy Frog related.
      I, for one, welcome our new Crazy Frog overlord.

    2. Re:I've never been so embarrassed in my life. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What! How can anyone not love the crazy frog? It's so clever and there's the talented voice work and the frog is naked! What else could you ask for?

  13. Loose Change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The most interesting thing about the Google Video top 100 has been Loose Change. For weeks it has been the only full length film that isn't short a very short titillation clip (eg Webcam Girls Go Wild) or dubious humour clips (eg funny clips baby fart) that has been in the top 20.

    Loose Change is the most popular 9/11 "conspiracy theory" film, no doubt due to its slick graphics, soundtrack and editing -- for an amateur movie it is impressive. However it's not the most accurate movie of its type -- see the discussion on indybay and the detailed Sifting Through Loose Change The 9-11 Research Companion.

    Read on for a brief guide to some better 9/11 videos that deserve more attention...

    9/11 Revisited: Were explosives used to bring down the buildings? (2006)

    This is currently, probably, the best 9/11 video that challenges the official conspiracy theory.

    9/11 Revisited concentrates on the collapse of the three World Trade Center buildings and includes news reports from the day and interviews with experts including Steven E Jones, David Ray Griffin and Jeff King. It is available to view online and via Google Video and the Internet Archive.

    9/11 Breaking the Laws of Physics (2006)

    This is a lecture from 2006 by BYU Physics Professor Steven E Jones on the collapse of the WTC buildings on 9/11. It is available from the Internet Archive. The academic paper this presentation is based on is Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?.

    The 9/11 Commission Report (2004)

    This is a lecture by David Ray Griffin -- professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology, at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. He has written many books including The New Pearl Harbor and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions on the official 9/11 Report. This lecture is available from theInternet Archive.

    9-11 Open Your Eyes the War on Terror is a Lie (2004)

    Filmed at the 9/11 International Inquiry (Toronto, May 2004) Open Your Eyes is available on the Internet Archive.

    Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime (2006)

    This new film covers the links between the US adminstration, the Republician Party and drugs running and the 9/11 hijackers, it is available on Google Video and there are higher quality versions on 911 blogger, the official film site is http://www.crisisinamerica.org/

    War and Globalization - The Truth Behind September 11 (2003)

    Politically this is the best video on 9/11.

    War and Globalization is a lecture, from 2003 by Michel Chossudovsky, a professor of econom

    1. Re:Loose Change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot to mention "Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-649546276 1605341661
      Perhaps the most powerful 911 documentary to date.

    2. Re:Loose Change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The most interesting thing about the Google Video top 100 has been Loose Change [google.com]. For weeks it has been the only full length film that isn't short a very short titillation clip (eg Webcam Girls Go Wild) or dubious humour clips (eg funny clips baby fart) that has been in the top 20.
      "Depressing" is the word I'd use. Loose Change has been thoroughly debunked, and yet people are still spamming the Google video link on every forum they can.
  14. self-fulfilling prophecy by robinesque · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It would seem to me the most popular videos will continue to become more popular...because everyone is going to click on the #1 ranked video, including all of these slashdotters.

  15. OMG PONIES!!!!111 by lm1981 · · Score: 1

    So I click to see the movers for Czech Republic and at this very moment there are no less than 32 videos (from 37) which have the term "barbie girl" in their title... WTF!?

    1. Re:OMG PONIES!!!!111 by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 1

      Why else do you think all the best strippers are Czechs?

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
  16. This doesnt work by HaMMeReD3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There needs to be some form of user feedback, clickthroughs do not define good, just popular. People accidently watch all kinds of crap, they also should completely discount any random videos people pick.

    There should be some form of rating on the videos as well so the people subjected to them can say if they suck or not, cause most of them suck.

    1. Re:This doesnt work by ben+there... · · Score: 1

      A really simple method might be to count the play after the video is done playing. I know they wouldn't have counted my Barbie Girl click if that was the case.

  17. Now even non-Subscribers can beat the rush...! by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

    .. and check out the upcoming artices on Slashdot in the next few days:

    How Google Makes Thumbnails: by scaling the images down

    How Google Displays Links: by using the anchor tag

    How Google News Finds News: by scanning news sites

    How Does Google Make You Feel Lucky: by showing you the first match

  18. How about the videos google deletes? by deacon · · Score: 1
    This is timely, since I was discussing on another board the videos that google will promptly delete because they threaten the google mindset. One good example is from the TV Series: "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" (Season 3, Episode 9) Gun Control.

    Put this video up, and watch it be pulled down for "violence" or "copyright infringement", never mind that the show is not about violence, but about your rights under the Second Amendment, and never mind that Google is full of videos which are "copyright infringing".

    Googles capitulation in China, and their increasing "BIG Brotherness" (but it's all for your conveniance) is sad to see. It reveals a mindset which harvests your info for marketing and "social" purposes, and also decides what you are going to be able to search for or see in an attempt to do social engineering (The google "news" discrimination for example). Winston Smith would recognize google in a dark alley.

  19. Being a member of both sites.... by Khyber · · Score: 1

    ... The answer is "No." To make a very weak analogy, Digg's "Dugg Stories" are much like Slashdot's "Submitted stories." The more it's mentioned, the higher rank it gets, and thus the better chance of it being put on the front page. (Which is what most story posters here on /. are pissy about. We post a story first, it has to have many other people submit it, then the editors decide if it's worthy enough, and when it *IS* posted, the original poster of the story is not even mentioned. But I guess I can't complain - I've only been warning slashdot about stuff for a short time, and they always seem to ignore it (See my submission history/summaries if you wanna-be troll-modders think otherwise,) and of course I'm not a paying member so my 'news' isn't really worth jack shit to them, even though I can *ALMOST* fully comprehend/predict the possible negatives that will affect us, judging by the news of whatever-mentioned story that gets rejected/accepted. That's life on /. get used to it.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:Being a member of both sites.... by Zaphod2016 · · Score: 1

      I use both sites too (same sn), and I fear you may be mistaken.

      Look at digg right now: story #1 has 112 diggs, story #10 has 486 diggs. It must be using something else to rank. I have heard other diggers claim it was based on time, but I haven't actually seen anything to confirm this anywhere.

      Re: submission. Don't let it bite yer ass. I'm 0 for 2 myself, and both stories have ended up on here anyway (just with a *ahem* better *idontthinkso* summary).

      Ok, ok...no more "grousing". ;-)

      --
      barack to the future?
    2. Re:Being a member of both sites.... by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Umm... Things get so many "Diggs" because people actively click on it to get it rated. Slashdot does NOT have this type of feature available to the general public on this site, so there is no way in heck you're gonna compare this to digg in this respect.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  20. what "algorithms" by learn+fast · · Score: 1

    The article says they use "algorithms" to tell when a video is becoming popular. Anyone have any guesses as to what these algorithms might be?

    I'm serious, I would really like to be able to use algorithms like that

    1. Re:what "algorithms" by assassinator42 · · Score: 1

      Daily views? Hourly views? Hourly views added up but weighted less the further back they go?

    2. Re:what "algorithms" by learn+fast · · Score: 1

      I'm sure it uses that information, but what's the actual math? I really doubt google would do something so pedestrian as to pick simple threshold values. It has to involve entropy or logarithmic scoring or something interesting.

  21. Soccer by Hobobo · · Score: 1

    Notice how all the Soccer/Football videos are popular in the US. That's because everyone else in the entire world has seen those clips a million times already!

    1. Re:Soccer by part15guy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, its embarrassing - especially with Arena bowl XX going on this weekend. Real football clips would get better rankings if the algorithms were correct.

  22. chaos! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

    Wow... Talk about a chaotic feedback system. Google makes videos popular by measuring how popular they are...

    --
    SIGSEGV caught, terminating

    wait... not that kind of sig.
  23. It's filled with dupes, too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you browse the listings, past the 10th page or so (yes, I really was bored) of most searches, you get endless dupes that it apparently doesn't recognize as similar... or something.

    Sorta like browsing the Slashdot archives :-)

  24. The PSP gurlzzz strike First by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just taking a look at that list of videos, you have to realize their ranking algorithm is so incredibly broken... I mean there is no way in heck those videos, of all the google videos, can be the most watched... not because they are so incredibly bad, but because they are so incredibly lame...

    Just looking at them, I was like, gawd, with that broken situation, anyone can make the top 100 with any kind of lamer video...

    So I made a horrendously low trailer park video of the PSPgurlz last night to test it out... is ranking function really that bad on google?

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9178168377 458997459

    Einstein
    http://rootpassword.com/