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Facebook will change video ranking to prioritize original content

It will prioritize videos that holds viewers’ attention.

Facebook wants to make it easier for filmmakers to grow their audiences and for viewers to connect with content creators. To do so, over the coming months, Facebook will change how it ranks videos. It will give more weight to videos based on their originality, intent and viewing durations. In a press release, the company said this will affect how videos are distributed across platforms like News Feed, Facebook Watch and Facebook's video recommendations.

Facebook says it will prioritize videos that people seek out and return to repeatedly. It will add weight to videos that keep people engaged for at least one minute, especially when those videos are more than three minutes long. And Facebook will place stronger limits on unoriginal content, including content that's repurposed with little additional value. To help filmmakers adapt to the changes, Facebook has detailed its policies in new Video Best Practices guidelines.

While Facebook already uses these and other factors to rank videos, the latest changes are meant to give quality, original content a boost. According to the company, this is a way to "show videos that people value and to help great video makers reach more people." It could also be an attempt to strengthen Facebook's reputation as a video-sharing platform.