YouTube

YouTube is a Web 2.0 online video sharing platform founded on February 14, 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, former PayPal employees.

Essentially, it allows users to upload, view, rate, share, bookmark, report, comment on videos, and subscribe to other users. The first beta version of the site was launched in May 2005, and the first video, titled “Me at the zoo,” was uploaded by Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005.

YouTube quickly evolved from an amateur video sharing site to a platform that hosts a wide range of content, including music clips, video blogs (vlogs), educational videos, corporate content, and more. In November 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock, integrating it into its ecosystem of online services and accelerating its growth.

Distinctive features of YouTube include the ability to upload videos in a variety of formats, including shorts, streaming of live events, monetization of content through YouTube’s Partner program, and integration with other social media. The platform also supports virtual reality and 360-degree video, and offers detailed analytics that can help creators understand their audiences and optimize their content for better engagement and visibility.

From an SEO perspective, YouTube plays a significant role as it is the second largest search engine in the world after Google and belongs to the same corporate group. YouTube videos can appear in Google’s search results, increasing the visibility of content.

Therefore, over time, so-called SEO for YouTube, or a set of strategies and tactics for optimizing videos for search, has become widespread, suggesting, among other things, the use of descriptive titles, accurate tags, keyword-rich descriptions, and subtitles.