If you want to understand how does YouTube count views, it is important to understand what a view means. YouTube counts a view based on whether the viewer has watched a video or not. YouTube views may seem straightforward at first, but in reality, it can be challenging to figure out what counts as a view.
You need to better understand how does YouTube count views so that you measure the success of your video content by the number of views. And also understand how far away your channel is from making money or getting famous.
How Are Views Counted On YouTube?
The simple answer is that each time a viewer clicks on a video and watches it for 30 seconds without skipping, it is counted as one view.
YouTube needs to know that your videos are getting views from real people. A view is counted on YouTube only if:
- A user purposely initiates the display of a video.
- The user stays on the video for at least 30 seconds.
Wondering how does YouTube count views and what are its limitations? If you skip a video but the total time spent watching the videos is more than 30 seconds, the view counts. Repeated views can be counted only up to a certain point. If your video is less than 30 seconds, we don’t know how many users it will take for the views to be counted. Such videos cannot be monetized either.
Fun fact: YouTube can also detect suspicious activity on your videos. It can detect whether or not the viewer is a real human. Here’s how.
Watch bots
Are you wondering how YouTube knows if a watch bot is watching your videos? YouTube studies user behavior. If a user is jumping from one video to another without any link to the previous video and spends less than 30 seconds, it assumes that the user is a watch bot and stops counting its views. YT won’t count your views if you leave spam comments on a video as well.
YouTube Live View Count
YouTube Live allows creators to share their real-time video content with their audience. Like its other uploaded content, YouTube views count for live as well if it meets the community guidelines. YouTube creators use live videos to interact and engage with their subscribers, making it one of the best ways to get more views on your videos.
Does YouTube Count Repeat Views?
When you’re thinking “How are YouTube views counted?” you must also wonder if the platform considers repeated views. Many viewers do watch a video more than once so do these views get counted or they’re completely dismissed?
As a creator asking these questions to yourself is valid as if only one view by each viewer is considered then it will hurt the pockets of all content creators. And YouTube somewhere understands this. YouTube counts up to 4-5 repeated views from the same viewer in the past 24 hours. So even if any viewer watches a video more than that on the same day, only 4-5 views are counted.
The number of repeated views is restricted to this particular amount for several reasons. The primary being that the platform is highly surfed with fake views every day. Millions of views are artificially sent to certain videos to increase their view count. So to control this spamming of bot views, YouTube has put down this restriction of calculating only 4-5 views from a single viewer in one day on a particular video.
Does YouTube Count Your Own Views?
Now you know how does YouTube count a view or how many times from a single viewer, but does it counts your own views? Well, the simple answer to this is yes! YouTube does count a creator’s own views, however, it also puts a limit on how many will be counted.
YouTube counts up to 3 views by the creator or the uploader. So if you post a video you watched it several times, YouTube will only count 3 views. Putting a cap on the amount of views a creator can give to its own content allows YouTube to control the entry of valid views. Without a limit obviously, creators would only go and watch their own videos on a loop!
What Is A View On YouTube?
Now that you get how does YouTube count views let’s see a little bit in depth. With billions of users, many have tried different methods to trick the platform into counting their views. Users fake the number of views to help monetize a channel and bring advertisers to the channel. To minimize the possibility of YouTubers manufacturing fake views, the platform created a system called the YT Algorithm that detects a real view.
YouTube Views Analytics
The next step after understanding how are YouTube views counted is understanding YT Views Analytics. To track the number of views on your YT videos, you can go to YouTube Analytics and go through the detailed report. But it sure is difficult to understand whether a view is fake or real. Those statistics aren’t available on analytics. But you sure can access data that’s useful to grow your YouTube channel and your subscriber base.
Here are the top YouTube Analytic Tools that will help you track your video and channel’s performance.
Conclusion
Now that you know how does YouTube count views, it’s time to scale up. Views are an essential part of YouTube monetization. The number of views on a YT video shows how well the video performs. And also shows that users enjoy the video content.
If these don’t give you the expected results, you can always buy YouTube views through online services. VeeFly is among the popular platforms that offer YouTube Promotional Services using the latest YouTube promotion strategies by taking your video directly to your target audience.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How long does it take for YouTube views to update and reflect the correct count?
YouTube has not officially made it clear how long it takes for views to reflect, however usually it takes from 24 to 48 hours for them to get reflected correctly.
Q2. Can YouTube remove views from my video, and why would they do that?
Yes, YouTube can remove views from your videos if it considered them fake. The platform analyzes views behind every video posted and removes if the views are fake from invalid IP addresses.
Q3. Do ads on YouTube contribute to video views?
Paid advertisement views are counted as video views by YouTube as the platform notes that the viewer interacted with the video.