YouTube changes view-counting metric to start as soon as a video plays

YouTube announced on Monday that it’s changing how views are counted on its platform, with a view now counting as soon as a video starts playing or someone enters a live broadcast. Although the Google-owned platform never disclosed how it previously counted views, it was generally understood that a view was counted after a user watched at least 30 seconds of a video.

The change comes a year after YouTube applied the same approach to counting views on Shorts videos. It’s worth noting that rivals TikTok and Instagram also count views as soon as a video starts playing.

“Historically, we’ve used multiple view counting systems across different formats,” the company wrote in a YouTube Community post. “However, we’ve heard that creators want to eliminate this metric confusion and accurately understand their true exposure, which is why we’re making this update.”

The shift could lead to significantly increased YouTube view counts, especially for videos that only briefly capture viewers’ attention. That means public view counts may no longer be a useful tool for creators and advertisers to determine how popular a video may be.

YouTube says it will keep the original view metric, now called “Engaged views,” accessible to creators through its Analytics tools to allow them to see how many viewers chose to continue watching their videos.

The company notes that the change won’t impact creators’ earnings or how they become eligible for monetization through the YouTube Partner Program.

The update, which goes into effect on August 24, comes a week after YouTube made another creator-focused change, announcing that new creators will have to meet higher thresholds to begin earning money from ads and subscriptions starting next year.

Creators who want to start earning on the platform will need at least 8,000 qualified watch hours over the past year or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. Currently, creators need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year or 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over the past 90 days. Additionally, creators need to maintain 10 million Shorts views over a 90-day period to earn money.