Videos not displaying within YouTube search results (query starting with '@' symbol)

[2uinc]

We recently uploaded a video to YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah0CgZ22NNU) only to realize that it wasn't being displayed within YouTube's internal search results when searched for by the brand name.

Our partner's brand name is @WashULaw. If you were to search for @WashULaw on YouTube, you'll notice it returns a 'No Search Results' page (http://screencast.com/t/ZP3SGM5sr). However, when you search for keywords without the @ symbol (i.e. washulaw, wash u law, etc) within YouTube, our video is discovered.

However, if you enter the @ symbol within their search bar and choose one of the auto-suggest keywords, you'll notice the query returns video matches (http://screencast.com/t/wkghMhRY). Looking at the view counts of these videos, they appear to be over 100K each.

Our video has been indexed by YouTube (http://screencast.com/t/6xV3kW2DHQ6R) and Google (http://screencast.com/t/r4jloA0BpPf). We've even added @WashuLaw as a tag.

My question, does anyone have an idea as to why our video isn't displaying when someone searches for our brand @WashULaw with the @ symbol within YouTube's search?

ZP3SGM5sr

[irvingw]

You answered the question yourself - because youtube has disabled searches with the @ symbol, most likely to keep spammers at bay as a deterrent from adding email addresses as titles in videos

[2uinc]

Irving, thanks for the response. It appears YouTube has not disabled searches with an @symbol though. For instance the query @dormtainmenttv returns results.