YouTube is changing how YouTube Shorts views are counted

YouTube is changing how it counts views on YouTube Shorts to give creators a deeper understanding of how their short-form content is performing, the company announced on Wednesday.

Shorts views will now count the number of times a creator’s Short starts to play or replay.

In the past, a view had been counted after a Short was viewed for a certain number of seconds. As a result of this change, view counts will be higher moving forward.

YouTube says that it’s making the change because it heard that creators want to understand how often their Shorts are actually seen. The idea is that creators can now better showcase the full extent of their reach, making it easier to inform their content strategy and present their work to potential brand partners.

With this update, YouTube Shorts will now align its metrics with those of TikTok and Instagram Reels, both of which track the number of times your video starts or replays. YouTube notes that creators will now be able to better understand how their short-form videos are performing across multiple platforms.

Creators who are still interested in the original Shorts metric can view it by navigating to “Advanced Mode” within YouTube Analytics. The metric, now called “engaged views,” will continue to allow creators to see how many viewers choose to continue watching their Shorts.

YouTube notes that the change won’t impact creators’ earnings or how they become eligible for the YouTube Partner Program, as both of these factors will continue to be based on engaged views rather than the updated metric.

The change goes into effect on March 31.