It's not an unethical hack, it actually helps the YT algorithm understand what category is the video part of. This works especially well in this scenario because kalari is a very narrow niche.
Tags do not boost your SEO at all, they rather help your video appear in the Recommended Videos section on the right of a YT video.
When I tagged competitors I was simply telling YT that it can show the videos to people watching another video from one of KalariLab's competitors.
There are 3 main ways to get views on YT when your channel is small:
1. SEO;
2. Homepage recommendations;
3. Recommended videos on other video pages.
The tactic with tags works only for the 3rd category above.
I hope that settles this discussion once and for all.
Sidenote: I still don't understand why this post was flagged...
Tags do not boost your SEO at all, they rather help your video appear in the Recommended Videos section on the right of a YT video.
When I tagged competitors I was simply telling YT that it can show the videos to people watching another video from one of KalariLab's competitors.
There are 3 main ways to get views on YT when your channel is small:
1. SEO; 2. Homepage recommendations; 3. Recommended videos on other video pages.
The tactic with tags works only for the 3rd category above.
I hope that settles this discussion once and for all.
Sidenote: I still don't understand why this post was flagged...