YouTube is a huge platform with billions of users, so getting your videos seen by as many people as possible is an important goal for most video marketers. However, there’s a lot of confusion about what actually counts as a view and what doesn’t. Some marketers wonder if refreshing a video adds views, while others are concerned that their views might be inflated by bots. Fortunately, YouTube has a system in place to monitor and eliminate spam views before they become a problem for the entire community.
What Counts as a View on YouTube
To get a view to count on youtube, the video must be played by a human on one device for 30 seconds or more. Embedded videos can also count, but the viewer must click to play them instead of the automatic autoplay that occurs when a video is played on a website or other social media platform. YouTube will also remove a video if it is malware (software that can damage or attack computers) or a spambot, which is software designed to automatically send spam comments to websites and other platforms.
Sometimes a video’s view count will appear to be stuck at 301 views, as YouTube employees manually verify that the videos are legitimately being watched by humans. This process usually only takes a few days and will only apply to videos that have passed the 300-view threshold, which is the minimum number required for a video to be eligible to be monetized and appear on the YouTube homepage and trending searches. youtube views