YouTube Shorts view counts are going to be different
YouTube will now count views on Shorts based on viewers who come across the content.
How many views are your YouTube videos receiving?
In order to truly know this, you have to understand how a view is counted on it in the first place. On a traditional it’s video, it adds a view to your video’s view count if a viewer watches 30 seconds or more of your upload.
However, when YouTube launched it’s Shorts four-and-a-half years ago, it didn’t count views on shortform videos in the same way. Instead, it would count a view on a it’s Shorts video if a user watched for at least a few seconds. It never provided an exact number of seconds, but it was clearly much shorter than the 30 second requirement for a it’s video.
As of March 31, 2025, it will add a view to your Shorts view count at the moment your shortform video begins to play.
There is no view time requirement anymore for a Shorts video. it will basically count a view if a user just sees your video at all. And because it’s Shorts content loops, it will count a new view each time that video replays from the beginning too.
According to YouTube, it’s making this change at creators’ requests as it more accurately reflects a more helpful metric for it Shorts content strategies in particular.
YouTubers who are fans of the previous default view count analytics will not lose that metric either. While public view counts on it’s Shorts will reflect the new way of counting views, the old metric will be renamed “engaged views” and can be viewed in a creators’ YouTube Analytics under “Advanced Mode.”
So, what does this all mean for YouTubers? As a result of the change, view counts for it’s Shorts will likely be much higher for creators under the new metric. It’s not necessarily because more people are viewing your content, it’s because it is now showing you how many people have come across your content, whether they watched a few seconds of it or not.