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Hello. I just want to answer a question that’s asked a lot in the Help forum,
and it’s this: somebody uploads a video and then can’t find it.
What they normally mean is that it doesn’t show up in search results.
There’s a reason, and the details are complicated and technical, so I won’t go into them now,
but basically, the first time you upload a video, and maybe also the second or third time,
it can take the search database one or two days to find your video and index it.
The other thing is that no matter how good your video is,
at the end of the day, it’s competing with millions and millions and millions of others
that are probably just as good, or better, although many will probably be worse.
This is simply because there are so many people uploading videos all the time,
and there may be thousands of people uploading at this very moment.
You may be thinking, if you haven’t any subscribers, how is anyone going to see your videos
in order to subscribe to your videos so that they get seen?
You need to get the ball rolling by telling people you already know personally
about your video and YouTube channel.
There are several ways of doing that.
First, your video should be visible on your YouTube channel profile page.
If you don’t know how to find your YouTube channel profile page, it’s simple:
The address is www.youtube.com/user/ and then your username.
You can leave out the “user” part and make your address even shorter,
but that’s not always guaranteed to work.
You can write this in e-mails, chat messages, instant messages and so on.
When you’re signed in, you can find a list of all the videos you’ve uploaded,
unless you’ve deleted them, of course.
To find it, click your username at the top right-hand corner of the YouTube page
and select “My Videos”.
Click on one of your videos’ thumbnail and you’ll be taken to the video watch page.
You can also write that address in e-mails, chat messages, instant messages, and so on.
But where do you find it?
You can find the address of any page by looking in your browser’s location bar,
but on YouTube you can always look below the video and click on the “Share” button.
As well as the address, also known as the URL,
you’ll also find buttons so that you can share your video with, for example,
MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
So, if you have accounts with any of these services,
you can quickly and easily share your video with your followers and friends.
If you click on “Embed”, you get some code
which you can use to paste anywhere that allows HTML:
your personal website, some internet message boards, and so on.
So, using these tools, you can communicate the fact to friends and family
that you have a video, and they should watch it.
It won’t make you famous overnight, but it will get the ball rolling,
and hopefully, if these people like your videos, they may share them with other people.
So, don’t be dismayed if you find it difficult to find your own video on YouTube.
Just be a little pro-active, get out there, have fun, make videos, and good luck.