Facebook Video Ranking Tweak Gives Original Content Priority

Facebook announced an upcoming change to its video ranking on Monday, stating that it will boost its prioritization of original content to help creators grow their audiences, among other things. The changes will roll out over 'coming months,' according to the company, and they'll revolve around three factors that Facebook says have an impact on how a video ranks.

Facebook plans to 'strength the influence' that its three factors have on video ranking; they include 'loyalty and intent,' 'video and viewing duration,' and 'originality.' The latter is self explanatory and helps cut down on the amount of copycat, repetitive videos that tend to circulate the platform.

As for 'loyalty and intent,' Facebook says that it considers both repeat viewership and intent to be 'important factors' for ranking videos in viewers' News Feeds. This category will be given more weight when ranking videos in the future, as will the second category, which includes keeping viewers watching for at least a full minute and getting viewers to engage with the content.

When it comes to originality, Facebook said last year that it would be limiting the distribution of what it considers repurposed and overall unoriginal content that originate from other platforms and have 'limited or immaterial added value.' Facebook also warns that Pages involved in so-called sharing schemes will have their video content demoted.

These aren't the only factors that influence how a video ranks on the social network, Facebook says, but they will be more heavily factored into any given video's ranking in coming weeks and months. This adjustment will hopefully benefit users who want to see more original content and less clickbait, as well as creators who put in the effort to produce original videos.