How Are YouTube Views Calculated?

Video views are one of the most important YouTube metrics. YouTube is very suspicious of view spamming and will freeze the count for users or IP addresses that are found to be doing it.

Having an accurate view count is key to monetization and becoming famous on youtube. Views can look different between the watch page, search page, and analytics.
What is a view?

Views are one of the most important metrics for YouTube videos. They help a video go viral, attract more advertisers and monetization opportunities, and ultimately increase earnings. YouTube doesn’t reveal the nitty-gritty details of how views are calculated, but there are certain criteria that must be met for a view to count.

For example, a view must be a viewer-initiated intended play and last at least 30 seconds. Also, videos must be played in a browser with JavaScript enabled. YouTube also excludes views generated by users repeatedly refreshing a video or using bots to generate spam views.

Although a view isn’t the only metric that matters for content creators, it’s a good indicator of video engagement. Getting more views on YouTube should be on (if not at the top of) every content marketer’s to-do list.
What is a view count?

As far as YouTube is concerned, a view counts whenever someone watches your video for at least 30 seconds. However, views aren’t a perfect measure of video popularity. YouTube is very strict about what constitutes a valid view, and it will only count videos that its security system can verify come from real people (not bots).

It also doesn’t accept any views from bots or other automated programs. Its security systems also block videos that appear to contain malware, which is software designed to damage a computer or network.

While YouTube doesn’t share the nitty-gritty details about how it counts views, there are a few important things marketers need to know. One of them is that a view count can differ between the video watch page, search page, and the analytics Realtime Activity metric.
How do views count?

A view on YouTube is a sign that someone watched your video. The minimum watch time is 30 seconds, and a video must be played for at least that duration to count as a view. Views also indicate that a viewer physically clicked the play button to begin the video.

YouTube will also only count a video as a view when it is viewed by real humans. It uses security systems to detect bots, and will exclude views if it believes a video has been deliberately inflated with fake views or is containing malware viruses.

For paid advertising (TrueView in-stream ads and TrueView video discovery ads): a view is only registered when someone clicks the ad to begin playback, or watches the full ad to the end. Refreshing a video does not count as a view, and will only count as a replay if it is rewatched 4-5 times in 24 hours.
How do views stop counting?

There are a few reasons why a video’s view count might stop updating or be frozen. YouTube wants to make sure that the views it is counting are real, so they freeze or slow down the updates on a video for a few hours after it hits 300 (or 301 if it’s over 300) as employees verify the view counts.

Another reason is if YouTube detects suspicious behavior. For example, if an account is repeatedly refreshing your video or leaving comments that appear to be spam, they will get flagged as a potential bot and their views might not count as much. YouTube also looks at if a video has been watched in a logical sequence. They want to see people replaying videos that they enjoy, which suggests quality.
How do views get frozen?

Sometimes your YouTube video views will appear to stop counting after a certain number of views. This is because YouTube has frozen the view count to make sure that the views are legitimate. This process can take anywhere from a few hours to a day.

YouTube is constantly monitoring the platform to ferret out fake views from both people and bots. In fact, some celebrities and large companies have even had millions of views deducted from their videos after YouTube determined that the views were not authentic.

If your video’s view count seems to be frozen, try restarting your computer or device. This is a simple trick that often fixes many problems. It will help if you also clear your browser’s cache. This will help speed things up and get your view count updating again.youtube views