Views are one of the most important metrics for determining how popular a video is on youtube. They’re also a critical factor when it comes to monetizing your videos. As a result, it’s important to understand exactly how youtube views work and how they are counted.
The answer is that it depends on how many times you watch a video and how long you watch for. YouTube counts a view whenever someone watches a video for 30 seconds or more. However, if you watch a video for five seconds and then skip forwards to watch another ten and repeat this process several times, each view will only be counted once. This is because you’re watching a video for less than 30 seconds each time.
YouTube will occasionally freeze a video’s view count so that it can determine whether the views are real. This is a common practice when a video first gets uploaded and it’s designed to prevent bots from artificially inflating view counts. This may cause the view count to pause for a few hours and then update more frequently once the views have been verified as legitimate.
It’s also worth mentioning that replay views do count toward total view counts. This is because it’s expected that people will replay and rewatch their favorite YouTube videos. However, if you replay a video over and over in a day without adding a break between replays then the video will be flagged as spam. This is because YouTube will spot this behavior and exclude views from users and IP addresses that have been identified as spamming their videos.