YouTube's Play Count Method

Hi all and happy new year.

I am not sure where else to ask this question but… I am studying, play counts on YouTube. A count for my video seems to not operate at a count++ way. Meaning, if I refresh the video that play does not necessarily register at all, if it does, it is certainly not shown instantly. Also, I noticed my play count dip. I know that is probably, ultimately impossible but it did.

Do, I am wondering does anyone have a clear explanation or understanding of how YouTube collects its play counts and then displays them? Considering of course, all computers and devices connected to the page on the www.

Thanks.

Youtube does not update views in real time, it counts the views and after awhile it will update the counter.

Also when a newly uploaded video becomes popular it freezes the view count at around 301, it then checks to make sure the views are legit then unlocks it and allows new views to show.

Is 301 the magic number? And how long is the freeze?

I’ve seen this 301 thing many times in well viewed channels. The freeze can take hours, but I’m not totally sure.

The strange part is that often the videos with 301 views had 10000+ likes, but after what Toasttify said it makes more sense.

This may explain some.
http://www.atlantaanalytics.com/practicing-web-analytics/how-does-youtube-video-view-count-work/

Great article, and yeah I’ve had one of my videos get a thousand likes stuck at 301 views, then the next day the counter updated to 100k views or whatever it was.

Very handy.
Thanks guys.

Youtube analyzes the first 300 views for click fraud. So, whatever you do, don’t sit there and click on
your own video 300 times. Otherwise it will be stuck at 300 for a very long time.