Originally Posted by TrashyGirl

Google owns Youtube.

But I think G tweaked their algorithm to more heavily favor low bounce rate and social signals which (conspiracy theory alert) benefits Youtube. And Youtube is now beginning to charge a nominal amount for some of their channels in addition to ad monetization (total conspiracy!).

But (reality alert) I think Google is just playing traffic director via their algo for what they perceive surfers want to see more than what they do not. Google should know the CTR on search results I assume. And if they see a higher CTR on search results where spammy tubes are riding high on the search results vs. pre-Penguin CTR on searches which dredged up results including "normal websites" or blogs, then they will continue to maintain their algo which favors tube results. I think this is just an illustration of what the majority of adult surfers want to see... free videos.

I don't think the text on the page matters as much as it used to. Tumblr evidences this since many Tumblrs place high on adult searches without the benefit of being tubes. What matters now in addition to bounce rate and social signals IMO seems to be the backlinks to the pages and how the pages are titled in addition to the bounce rate and social aspect.