Documentation > Campaigns > Rank Tracker Settings

YouTube Search Rank Tracking

YouTube Channels and individual videos can be tracked on the YouTube search engine in one of two ways depending upon your reporting goals.

Track one to hundreds of individual videos for your keywords using the Keyword Target URL feature restricted to reporting on only the listed URLs.
Track a video or channel URL vs. 3 to 20* additional videos (your own or competitors) for all of the campaign keywords, using the Exact URL Tracking Mode.

* the number of additional URLs is based on the package capacity, contact us for pricing on packages with more than 3 additional URLs.

YouTube Rank Tracking with Target URLs

The Target URL feature can be used for tracking YouTube video rank or a YouTube Channel. For this type of rank tracking, in the Campaign General Settings screen:

the Primary Domain should be set to youtube.com
Tracking Mode: Default

General Settings for YouTube Video Tracking

YouTube Search Engine Settings

Campaign Search Engines screen:

Select United States in the Country field
Select YouTube in the Search Engine field
Click the Add button.

YouTube Geo Location Setting

Note: this feature is only available in Enterprise packages

If you want country-specific YouTube search results, then click the Custom Location & Options button, select a Geo Location, and click the Save button.

Add Keywords and Target URLs

In the Campaign Settings > Keywords screen, manually add keywords and target URLs or import keywords with target URLs following the format in the sample spreadsheet that's available toward the bottom of that screen.

You must check the Track Target URL(s) Only when using this feature for YouTube rank tracking.

YouTube Target URL Rank Dashboard
In the Display Settings of the Rank Dashboard report, enable the display of the Target URL column and you'll see a green check mark when the ranked landing page is in the target URL list for the keyword.

You may notice that the Landing Page displayed is the video's URL, if you'd like to display a more user-friendly option refer to the Landing Page Tags instructions below.

Note: with the Target URL method, you may also track YouTube video rank in Google organic search

Landing Page Tags for YouTube Reporting

User-friendly YouTube Video Labels
In the Campaign Settings > Landing Pages screen to display a user-friendly description of YouTube videos in the Rank Dashboard report:

URL Address: enter the full URL, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRgYMzahgcQ
Enter Tag: enter a Tag / Friendly Name as you want it displayed in the report

Rank Dashboard Example
The settings in the Landing Page Tags above are reflected in this Rank Dashboard example
The Landing Page Tag option is located in the Report Options > Display > General section of the Dashboard report

YouTube Dashboard with landing page tags

YouTube Video or Channel Tracking Multiple URLs

Campaign General Settings
To track a video or channel URL vs. 3 to 20 additional videos (your own or competitors) for all of the campaign keywords:

Enter the video or channel URL
Select the Exact URL Tracking Mode

YouTube Search Engine Settings

Campaign Search Engines screen:

Select United States in the Country field
Select YouTube in the Search Engine field
Click the Add button.

YouTube Geo Location Setting

Note: This feature is only available in Enterprise packages

If you want country-specific YouTube search results, then click the Custom Location & Options button, select a Geo Location, and click the Save button.

Add Keywords
In the Campaign Settings > Keywords screen, manually add or import keywords following the format in the sample spreadsheet that's available toward the bottom of that screen. Do not set target URLs when using Exact URL Tracking Mode.

Track Additional URLs
In the Campaign Settings Websites screen you may add more YouTube video URLs (up to the package limit) to be tracked and viewed in the Dashboard report in competitor view. Click the + plus symbol to add Tags for display in the report to make it easier to identify the video content.

Rank Dashboard Report Example
Refer to the Report Options instructions for customizing the Dashboard report view.

Video Carousel Setting

The display of video carousel in search results linking to the tracked domain or YouTube (or other video platforms) can be added to SEO tracking by using this search engine setting.

Search Engine Setting for Video Carousels
This setting is located in Campaign Settings > Search Engines

Search Engine Setting for Video Carousel

Confirm Video Channel Name
The name entered in the Video Carousel setting needs to match the channel name. For example, on YouTube allrecipes.com has a channel named "Allrecipes" (not "All Recipes"), so it needs to be entered that way in the Video Carousel settings.

Multiple Video Channels
In case, there is more than one video channel to be tracked that contains the same name with variations, then our (contains) option can be used by placing part of the channel name that is the same in both channels inside of round brackets.

For example, Allrecipes UK has:
Youtube channel named Allrecipes UK | Ireland
Vimeo channel named Allrecipes UK

Then in the Search Engine Settings in the Video Carousel, the input will be (Allrecipes UK)

In case, there are multiple video channels to be tracked and not all channel names have similarities, then use a (contain) with a pipe separation for those channel names that are different, as follows: (Name1)|(Name2)

For example, Linus Media Group owns several YouTube channels including
Linus Tech Tips
ShortCircuit
Techquickie
TechLinked

In order to track all of them the Search Engine Settings in the Video Carousel, the input will be (Linus Tech Tips)|(ShortCircuit)|(Techquickie)|(TechLinked)

Example of Video Carousel in Rank Insights Video view
In Reports & Tools > Organic Search > Rank Tracking > Rank Insights > Video view, if a video is displayed in the search results and the URL matches the tracked domain or the channel matches the channel name in the search engine settings, then you can open the SERP Snapshot to discover the video title, URL and channel name (if the video link is at YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)

Example of Video Carousel reported in Rank Insights > SERP Features view

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