Your YouTube video views are about to skyrocket. Heres why.
YouTube is changing how video view metrics are counted on the platform.
YouTube is set to alter its video view counting method, potentially increasing the appearance of views on long-form videos. The platform announced on Monday that starting August 24, it will begin counting views from the moment a video starts playing, up to the first frame. This shift aligns with the way YouTube measures views for its Shorts, which have been tracked from the start of the video since March 2025.
Shorts are vertical or square-format videos up to three minutes long. Before this change, YouTube only counted a view for long-form content if a viewer watched at least 30 seconds. This change will provide creators with more data, but YouTube will still report the old metric as "Engaged views" in creators' YouTube Analytics under Advanced Mode.
The company will continue to use the old view metric for monetization purposes. This move comes as YouTube joins other major platforms like TikTok and Elon Musk's X, which have previously counted views from the moment a video begins playing. The change will not impact monetization requirements for creators' channels.
Written by urgent.news from Mashable's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
