Why would we "accept that the short got low views, and move on", when we know that if we repost it, it's going to potentially get a high number of views? And if you're saying "the algorithm is finding an audience that will enjoy your content and how that goes then determines when it does the "drop off"...", then you need to improve this part of the algorithm and keep finding the audience that enjoys the content. It just doesn't make sense to completely end serving the content to the audience, and quite frankly it's annoying. Another thing - posting time of day DOES matter, why would I expect to get views if my main timezone audience is asleep? I'm uploading on number of channels (this star wars one is just a pass time, the other channels are livelihood) and one of the channels is for kids - why would I post if theyre at SCHOOL for instance, knowing that the views are going to die after around 6 hours. Another thing - posting amount DOES matter - if I upload a short in the middle of the first 6 hour period of another short, it breaks the views for both shorts. It's like we have to wait until the algorithm is DONE with the current short and dumps it, before uploading a new one, otherwise you get no views on the new one. Another bunch of vague / wishy washy answers to the questions the creators NEED ANSWERS to. It's just insulting that these are the "answers" that are given, time and time again. Sorry about the rant, but these answers are not acceptable. Don't even bother doing these interviews if you're just going to give these vague answers that the creators KNOW are BS.
This... "if I upload a short in the middle of the first 6 hour period of another short, it breaks the views for both shorts. It's like we have to wait until the algorithm is DONE with the current short and dumps it, before uploading a new one, otherwise you get no views on the new one." Similar thing happened to me as well. But in my case it was one of the shorts that was pushed into the algorithm for a 3rd time. I uploaded a new short while that one was getting views and the new one got 0 views. It was not shown to anyone in shorts feed, but the one that was getting views continued to get views until the push finished. Then I did the same thing once again with the same scenario and the same thing happened.
Exactly! Countless times I go looking for answers only to find there aren't any. Like trying to find answers about hashtags, how many is a good number? I've had the same thing happen with my shorts if I upload 2 in a 24 hour period. One, or both, will just die .
But why does a short that goes viral (millions of view, 100,000 vph) suddenly drop to nothing? If the algorithm is doing so well, why does it suddenly stop?? I feel like this was almost answered in the video but the explanation stopped short: "depending on how it goes". According to my analytics it was going extremely well. So what gives? Great video. Thank you
99% of the money made by shorts are for compilations of stolen content and UA-cam has done nothing to address this. “Funny clips I found” is the most popular form of shorts and it’s killing the rest of us
It feels like the whole platform is trying to be TikTok now. 90% of the shorts in my feed are stolen, copyright movie content. This is a huge problem and needs to be fixed.
Great questions, great answers, thank you! The only thing I do not agree is the thumbnails. Thumbnails are not only there to attract the viewer to that particular video, but it is also a part of the brand recognition on your channel page. If the Shorts tab is filled with dumb looking frames that are randomly selected, it hurts the image. It shouldn't be that hard to give creators the option to at least pick the frame they want to showcase.
The most frustrating thing about short is how fast the views can die. A short gets a ton of views and is set on a good vertical trajectory and then it just flattens off all of a sudden. It doesn't taper off is just abruptly stops getting views. The answer in this video didn't really answer anything but it would be great if UA-cam could figure out what's causing this.
just like beeing controlled by system how many you will get after an hour.. after that you will beeing stopped. Like our shorts are missing from system.
absolutely agree with you. Nothing was answered in this video. Sudden death of shorts are frustrating. I noticed, on average it takes 6-7 hrs to get the peak, and last only 5min. Why can't this be just a normal simple relationship? Why "Algorithms" need to be looking good by complexing things unnecessarily?
How is it possible that 90 % of my shorts "wait" for 6 hours before getting views and that these views are always about the same amount, 2k-3K, no matter on likes or audience retention?
Yeah. I think youtube is just flooded, hence has almost zero potential for new creators, and they either don't know what to do about it or they don't care.
Captain subtext at 4:30 - UA-cam definitely has no intention of re-enabling the option for custom thumbnails for shorts even though a good half of creators want this.
Interesting fact. First hour your short viewed vs swiped away is 80/20. But if second hour is 50/50. Short grow is killed. Huge drop kills short. Short perform good when viewed vs swiped away is very stable. Example. First hour 78/22. Second 77.8/22.2. Thirth hour 77.9/22.1 ...
I find the Shorts algorithm bit janky and slow. While TikTok or IG content can pop off in a few hours or days, it can take YT weeks and often months to “find the right audience”, and then pops off. I hope they can improve this.
there seems to be a glitch.. even uploading on the right time can get me 0 views and sometiems uploading on a wrong time can get me 5,000 less than an hour :D
Hi Rene great video, but CHOOSING A FRAME on DESKTOP UA-cam studio I think is a priority (or please prioritize), Most of us who edit shorts, edit the shorts in our computer, and we still have to send the file via google drive or whatever to our mobile phone, adding 2 to 3 additional steps just to CHOOSE A FRAME. As mentioned it is just a matter of time but please this will be helpful to us to choose FRAME on Desktop thanks!
I feel like this video answered some of my Shorts questions, but not really. *First -* Why do shorts need to be vertical? Why not landscape? *Second -* it's odd that I can't simply pick a frame on desktop for my UA-cam short. I have one video that is about cats, but UA-cam picked one frame with eggs. *Thirds -* In that same video, it had over 1600 views in the first hour, but then very few views for the next 77 days. The views graph in analytics goes sideways. That doesn't seem natural. I don't know why this happened. But in general, it seems that my shorts get an initial burst of views and then die - except for one about Crossy Road April Fools. April was months ago, but UA-cam keeps sending that one out. Evergreen content seems to be ignored, while unexpected videos get some extra views. I made one about a Mario Jigsaw Puzzle - on Mario Day. You'd think that would do amazing. You'd think cute cat videos would perform well. They did not! Also, when I watch shorts on UA-cam, it seems to show the same ones over and over. There doesn't seem to be enough variety, but it seems that so many people are making shorts. I'm thinking of stopping though, as the format seems less popular than my channel's traditional content. When sorted by views, the 30th video is a short. 29 traditional videos outperform shorts… and my channel has over two dozen shorts.
4:30 all well and good, but then YT decides to use valuable space on end screens for Shorts, with horrible frames instead of thumbnails. As predominantly a long form content creator, I'd rather show a proper thumbnail. Give creators the choice to create a thumb or not for Shorts.
If thumbnails can be attached while uploading short videos in the mobile version, why not in the PC version? You should also see this. Although it is said that thumbnails are not an issue, I think thumbnails are very important to express the external beauty of a video. It is important to have the option to select thumbnails on the computer.
could you guys add in the short reel, a reminder for long-form content from channels that we are already subscribed to? Short reel's biggest flaw at the moment is it doesn't remind viewers that they are subscribed to channels that make long-form content and they may have a new video released. As of now once you get in the Shorts reel section you are pretty much stuck there.
This explains nothing of relevance to small creators like myself. We upload a short, it gets pumped for maybe 1k views max for an hour or two, then all of a sudden flatlines to never receive a view again. why cant youtube address this?
Short is testing from first second. Even first swipe away can destroy short. Interesting fact. First hour your short viewed vs swiped away is 80/20. But if second hour is 50/50. Short grow is killed. Huge drop kills short. Short perform good when viewed vs swiped away is very stable. Example. First hour 78/22. Second 77.8/22.2. Thirth hour 77.9/22.1 ....
this guy doesn't want to admit that shorts really destroys your long videos , in fact, UA-cam shorts really destroyed my youtube income. i have more than 700,000 subscribers but my income is only 1/7 from what i get when i have 100.000 subscribers. When you upload shorts videos, youtube no longer push your long video like they used to. You like it or not that's the fact. That's why lots of youtubers now start to move to Facebook
That's been my experience too. A few of my shorts went viral and although they have generated for me tens of thousands of new subscribers, my number of long-form content views has gone down as well as my income. I do wonder though if it has more to do with a general trend of viewers watching more shorts content than it has to do with the algorithm punishing me for making successful shorts.
UA-cam doesn't want more creators to get monetised or to have more income but they just want to use our channel as money making opportunities with their adverts. Anyway that's how I view it.
Todd, if you care about being creator first - you NEED to adjust the linking change that is coming on August 31st. You've been telling us to make evergreen content for the last few years - and this change is horrible and will effect small creators really negatively. Overnight my whole back log of shorts will stop converting. - Allow creators who are verified and two factored to still keep links in their shorts.
Pleased you asked the question about custom thumbnails on Shorts Rene. I would like to challenge the answer given "Being on the shelf on shorts is not where most of the traffic comes from?" Given what the data is telling us, I would argue that if you are intentionally making search based content, being on the shelf really does matter with a good thumbnail. For example a video we made about "Monetization Requirements" in which I had to hack a thumbnail into the short (through a workaround) now appears on the shorts shelf when you search for "Monetization Requirements". This Short is getting 40% of its traffic from search Vs 13% of its traffic from Shorts feed. In another example where the search term is "youtube shorts thumbnail" the search traffic is as high as 62%. Appreciate this is anecdotal but every time we target search based content and have used a custom thumbnail, views from search traffic exceed short feed traffic leading me to believe having a good thumbnail is important... unless I'm misinterpreting how search views are tracked on shorts videos, in which case, it needs to be tracked differently or explained to creators.
Another anecdote... I've noticed almost every time I see a viral (+5 mil view) short on my homepage the video has a great title and thumbnail. Most of the non-viral shorts on my homepage have a random screenshot that doesn't make sense with the title.
Hello @vidIQ! Off topic but I subscribed and binge watched your videos to learn as much as possible as a new content creator. Recently got monetized after being on and off of UA-cam. Thanks!
That initial push and burst of views then flat line is the most puzzling/annoying/challenging part of it. As much as we can look at the metrics (AVD, swipe away, likes/comments, etc.) there's still no sense of what the audience is and when we've successfully pushed the right audience buttons - it's binary, either more views or not - but knowing what audience liked it and what audience didn't like it would help so much.
I think you mean: "What the algorithm randomly selected audience liked or didn't like" . There's a major difference there especially if the numbers are in the hundreds where its very unlikely any meaningful conclusion can be reached even by an AI. Its like playing roulette, you pick a number and let it spin, whatever happens happens. I've tested this with other creators and this whole talk of "audience=algorithm" is 100% not true.
Well said@@OnSpotTV. He also said if the short doesn't do well we should just accept it and move on. But why would we do that, when we know the algorithm basically showed the short to a duff audience, and therefore reposting it may enable it to be shown to a better audience and get much better view numbers (which is what happens!)
@@StarWarsUpdate we're all getting punished for our hard work because they want to fix the algorithm to be "safe" from being abused by a minority, i don't understand how this is a good thing in their view. This is happening for all videos, not only shorts
You can 100 percent repost the exact same video without altering anything. It doesn't follow any rules like a standard video. And I would if you felt your video should have done better. If you are worried you can always private the poor preforming version@@StarWarsUpdate
we knew for a fact that our audience is there, however even after 155 original shorts, the YT algorithm somehow is not reaching that audience. Even though from time to time we get a jump and it seems like we are able to reach our audience, the short just suddenly stops getting shown, we can clearly see that in the analytics. This behavior is pretty demotivating to be honest, since it looks like finally YT found our audience and then bamm, nothing!
I feel like this video didn't answer a lot of the questions asked. We have a dedicated shorts channel to complement our main channel because we don't want to flood the main channel with shorts. However, it seems like no matter what we try, our shorts channel isn't gaining traction. We're fairly confident it's not a "content" issue because the main channel has over a million subscribers. However, our shorts channel only gets a couple thousand views per short and then drops off. The view durations and "like" percentages are very high, yet UA-cam doesn't find these shorts to be worthy of being in people's feeds. It's very frustrating and discouraging.
I used to thousands of views on my own content in shorts but now my views don't even reach 100. The thing is UA-cam doesn't even care for small creators who are doing their own contents rather than stealing someone else's content and putting it in shorts. Just tell directly you guys don't care about small creators, only spending more money on bigger content creators.
Why are most new channels experiencing the issue where their shorts dont even get a seed audience? The shorts get 0 views? Is this an issue on the creator's side? This has happned on my channel and many other creators.
A question that still has not been answered: Why not allow one -- just one -- mid-roll ad insert on videos 5 minutes to 8 minutes in length? This would be lucrative for creators as well as for UA-cam. Five-minute videos can readily support one mid-roll ad.
Maybe next conversation, a little serious questions like ...if UA-cam is suggesting videos to "interest Audience" who swipes🤔 Why shorts reach stops at few thousand when there are 14 million users on UA-camshorts...means someone/ something monitors...what are the break evens ...when available maybe another conversation
All this but shorts not even getting pushed out or just pause at 1k - 3k views, and then wanting us to get 3M views in 90 days is crazy that would take years, it deffo should be shorter to get monetized
i can't believe I have to edit it on my computer, send it to my phone to upload it so that i can use the frame i want for the thumbnail, and then go back to my computer to fill in the rest of the info that it doesn't give you the option to edit on the phone... 😑
Wonderful interview. But One thing really disturbs me in shorts. My all shorts videos gets struck after getting 2k views. Same for many creators i see. pl focus on that aspect in detailed video with responsible people at UA-cam.
Just a tip. Create the short on your pc. Send to your email. Download to your phone. Upload your short from UA-cam app. You can then choose the thumbnail frame. You can even dedicate a 1 second frame at the end to be a custom thumbnail then select that. Thumbnails do matter. At least when the auto selected frame/thumbnail by YT is unappealing
Good idea, but there's no excuse for this to be necessary. Google/UA-cam is the largest in the world. Such poor design is inexcusable and just asinine.
Some of my best videos, never take off. The most basic thing can explode, while I have shorts that are so much better and nothing happened to them. I started to repost in the beginning, but it never considered it spam. I'd post a video and it would be less than 10 views, then it gets 2000 on the repost 1 week later. Subscribers do not make any impact on my short viewership.
@@djordjek3916 I ended up just un-listing them at first, but decided to delete them later on. I stopped doing it though, only did it a few times. It is what it is, but it sucks when you work on something for hours editing vs something that takes 10 minutes. lol
I think being able to pick the thumbnail again would go a long way. I stopped doing shorts because every single video is a terrible thumbnail that doesn't align with my video at all. I understand not having custom thumbnails but at least give the option to select what is show can go a long way 🤙🏿
Yes I totally agree. I swear, it always feels like YT picks the worsttt shot to display as the "thumbnail" for my shorts 😣😣 And I'm just like "Really?? You couldn't have picked something better?"
@yellowberrio absolutely that's me every single time lol. Meanwhile I see other pages with the perfect shot on all their videos and I'm just like how 😅
@@JonathanWinbush Omgahhh yess I always see other channels be having some much more appealing shots for their thumbnails yet YT chooses the worst ones for me. Sorta makes me feel like YT hates me or something 😅😅
I prefer the option to pick my frame as a thumbnail in the Shorts. Thank you!! This let's us pick a nicer frame for our page, but alleviates the stress of making a "real" thumbnail. I would disagree about timing. Maybe the algorithm doesn't have coding for timing, but you want to post when your audience is most active. i.e. If you are targeting students you probably won't have a great view average posting while they are in morning classes. I find my audience turns up more in the late evening for Shorts. Personally I love that this has been added. I have gained viewers on my mid form videos and long form streams because of the Shorts I have posted. I love that you are giving us more options to reach our target people and gather the communities we want. Thank you!!
@JustCrushit I have far fewer subs but 100% organic and I get messages almost daily of subscribing and the bell don't work, AND that people are being forcefully unsubscribbed and have to constantly resubscribe.
We believe that thumbnails would not only encourage creators to be more, well, creative, but would reel in more desktop users. Taking a look at the desktop UA-cam, MOST if not ALL of the shorts that are on the front row, have a relevant/interesting thumbnail by default. This is either completely by chance, or the thumbnail DOES play a role.
The thing I don't understand about the Shorts algorithm is that it seems to have a "delay time" before it finds its audience. There have been a few times where I post to Reels, TikTok, and Shorts simultaneously: on the first two platforms, the views take off immediately, but Shorts will get a handful of views that come almost exclusively from the existing audience/notifications. Then, after about 6 or 7 days, the video seems to "hit" the Shorts feed, and it takes off on UA-cam. Why does it take so long for a Short to pick up views? Shouldn't it hit the Shorts shelf immediately and sink or swim based on how the audience receives it? Why the "delay"?
I've seen other people talk about this and honestly wonder the same. It doesn't happen to me normally my short content will get a few hundred to a few thousand within the first 12-24 hours it always seems. I am curious on how the delay happens though as it could mean other things for content that was originally shown, got a few chunk of views, and then could possibly be thrown back into the algorithm at a later date?
For me it's like if i post on 9 pm and the audience im getting from a country are not in there peak hours that time because of the time difference. But after one day it just stop. Any advice for that
I have the same experience. I've had shorts that get millions of views on Tiktok/Reels within days, then it has taken up to 82 days before they get picked up in Shorts
Thank you making this video and for keeping shorts under 60. That's a good call. On the topic of thumbnails though - I still believe that choice is the way to go. If users don't want to worry about it then let them not worry. I care what my shorts shelf looks like. Just because a billion people don't care doesn't mean that *MY* feelings are invalid.
recently i’m in my flop era, no matter what i post, when i post, nothing gets put into the algorithm. when i started my channel i was THRIVING. getting so many views and now i have a vid with almost 2 mill. but now i’m getting no views :( makes me sad cuz i randomly stopped gaining views
It seems like, if someone just focuses on quantity… they take off and blow up… quality is a secondary item. Which stinks because I’ve unfollowed so many people because it feels like spam
I really hope that the posting frequency does not matter in getting views. It will lead into lack of quality, like we´ve seen in other social media platforms.
He answers some of the questions about the algorithm like it could be this, or it could be that as if he doesn't know. But he's the head of the department. Why wouldn't he know?
Truth is painful. They cant say that we created algorithm who supports big youtubers. Oh but i watched your channel and waaau. your shorts views are small. Maybe a lot people swipes away. The more unstable your hourly *viewed vs swiped* away statistic. The less views you will get.
Good point about not wasting time on the shorts' thumbnails. Also, there's a lot of people taking other UA-camrs clips and adding them on their channel, making money from someone else's hard work.
3.7 Million videos are uploaded daily, that's around 271,330 Hours of video length time per day...those numbers are insane when you think about a competition of who can get their videos pushed to the front. The "Gold Rush" of social media/UA-cam is long over, it's all about viewer retention/paid advertising to get pushed to the front. My 2 cents, make videos of what you're interested in, help people out, teach people, grow a community and maybe by some longshot one day people will find your stuff through the billions of videos and algorithm manipulation.
The comment "if you upload on desktop it's higher resolution"...is that true? I found that uploading on an iPhone gives SD and HD options, but on my Samsung Flip it only gave the SD option. I never upload on desktop because of the lack of thumbnail control
"Does the video resolution make a difference? Typically, I produce videos in resolutions such as 720p and 1080p. My inquiry is whether videos in 4K or 8K receive preferential treatment in the algorithm compared to videos of standard quality?"
Reposting shorts does work. I've posted a short that received almost no views. If I feel confident that it would have received more views, then I recreate it and post it a second time. One time the first post only got 14 views, but the second post received 2k views. Also, if you post shorts too closely together, often only the most recent short will be disseminated while the first short will be forgotten by the algorithm.
How do you re-post them? Do you "delete them forever on YT" or just private them, then re-upload few days later and maybe delete the old one? I completely agree with the last sentence. I had shorts that I uploaded while of the previous shorts was pushed into the algorithm for the 2nd or 3rd time. The new one was not shown in shorts feed at all. It got 0 views. Looks like when that is the case, you have to wait until that push is finished.
@djordjek3916 That's exactly what I do; I just put the video to private or delete it, then I re-record the video and post it again. If you make a short private, and then a few days later make it public again, the UA-cam algorithm will recognize it as the same short and will not distribute it. That has been my consistent experience, at least.
I found shorts algorithm very baffling, especially during its initial burst. Every time I upload my shorts, pre-burst viewed vs swiped is always bias around the viewed side. Which usually is around 70% and above. Which gives me good indication that my shorts are in good quality. The number likes I received before the burst also reinforce that idea. But when the burst happens, it destroys that indicator down to 30% area. Which ruin that video chances of any future promotion. I can't even tell whether my shorts are bad or good since the way how shorts algorithm works. I mean, I have 8 shorts that have gain views over 100k+ and the highest is 800k+ views. That is first time in my life that one of my videos reach somewhere near 1 million and I have been trying hard on UA-cam since 2016. Now they all dwindle around 1k+ views average and only a few of them are lucky enough to get 10k+ views. This indicates at some point you guys change how the algorithm works, to the point it is more RNG then algorithmic. I'm not sure that is the case but it feel it is. I don't agree on the thumbnail, you should at least give us the options to choose the thumbnails from the short itself. Cause one of my old short (uploaded around January) has a sudden increase of views 100+ views per 60 minute almost everyday. While my latest shorts doesn't get the same views even it is based on the same topic. I suspect it is because the new shorts thumbnail is automatically poorly chosen compare to the old one. Since the old short got its second chance from the UA-cam search and home page.
Mmmm to be honest I don't believe he said much that we don't already know. The problem is that content isn't randomly sent. If they don't like it, they don't distribute it. In other words the content is skewed. That should be clear.
There is some issue with Shorts as on our channel it feels like no matter how good or bad you make a short the maximum it reaches 2500 views and after that it just stucks, and its not with 1 short but with all the short that we make on our channel most of the shorts stuck at 2500 Views
i feel like this was the most round about answer - just keep making shorts and make your voice heard is what I heard - eventually you will be rewarded with your right audience. - that would have saved me 11:32 watching general information haha! thanks for this, now lemme get back to posting this short...
somehting ive noticed since I make pokemon go content is that the shorts can easily reappear when certain Pokemon are in raids and I'll get an uptick in views from that with all sources included. Shorts arent necessarily ephemeral in the feed, they will pop back up if they are evergreen content or interest in the subject matter grows, at least in my experience so far
I wish you would address the issue with viral Shorts that get marked by your system as "Kids". It happens a lot to me and my colleagues, and the problem is, that any viral Shorts that you mark as "kids" stops performing immediately and forever, zero views, instead of millions. Also, thumbnails are critical, I hope we will be able to select a frame soon. Also, in my experience (I've tested it numerous times), the same Shorts will get a different amount of impressions on different channels, on a larger channel the same Short will get more views. A tip - you really need to upload Shorts regularly if you want impressions. Finally, on my shorts feed I don't see names of channels, only title. So, I don't click. In my humble opinion you need to add the name of the channel somewhere so people can click on favorite channels.
I want one thing from shorts and that thing is the option to block them on mobile/pc integrated in the youtube platform,I ended up not using youtube at all because I get shorts recommended and they are not what I want to see on youtube,long form packs a lot more quality in information and such an option would be verry good for people that don't like shorts
There has to be some way to balance this. I love the little shorts shelf on my home page, because I actually get to look and choose what I watch, knowing it's only going to be a minute or less, no pressure to commit lots of time. But yeah, I bet shorts feel really cloggy and in the way for people who are only here for the long videos. And we don't even need to talk about search results. Those are a nightmare for no reason.
I am new to UA-cam and have always been puzzled by a burst of views and then a flat line. So thank you so much for explaining all this and other aspects of the UA-cam algorithm.
I released a series of shorts (10-15 sec) and the first 12 had consistently between 1.2k and 1.7k views and all of a sudden, the same concept of short video decreased to 70 views. I understood your explanation, but you could (or should) program the algorithm to keep on finding an audience in different places of the "matrix" instead of dumping the content to oblivion. I am not a programmer and I don't understand how it works, but maybe you should include some kind of geographic search into the equation. I have a channel in Portuguese. My content should be available in countries where Portuguese language is spoken, and not in places where language, instead of content, is an obstacle. If someone in South Africa or Pakistan or México, is confronted by my short video and dislikes it, why should I be punished by it, if my content is being shown in the wrong places?
Thank you for this video! Every question answered is one that I've personally asked or been asked by my creator friends. It feels very direct, honest, and informative. It is very apparent that this video was directly driven by creators on UA-cam. Would love to see more like this! Being able to pick a frame thumbnail on PC would be amazing. Most of my workflow is through PC.
By _completely arbitrarily_ taking away the ability to add thumbnails to shorts, UA-cam is actively HURTING - _not helping_ my channel. Sorry Todd, I don't need you to make a judgement call on whether I'm "over investing" in thumbnails. I need you to put that functionality back in place, the way it originally worked and quit monkeying what what you _think_ I should be focused on.
at first when i started posting shorts, they don't seem to do well. i felt maybe that's because my channel is still small. but after maybe the first two weeks, they start taking off. so now I don't bother. i just try to make them better. shorts have really helped me get to where I am now.
You can accomplish this partially by using the "remix" feature. If you make sure long form videos easy to convert to shorts via remix this works pretty well
its discouraging as I have 30+ shorts posted and not a single view, its like UA-cam wont even show my video to anyone so then it wont keep getting recommended as there is no engagement :(
To genuinely support small creators and original content, it's crucial to combat bot manipulation in all video lengths, as algorithms are at risk daily. The suggestion is to introduce a verification process for comments to trace engagement origins and ensure UA-cam remains unbiased. Furthermore, to create a positive societal impact, the platform should rigorously check the health sources it promotes and ensure they're free from misinformation. The current bot-boosted channels have allowed harmful content to spread, sidelining small creators and fostering misinformation. This oversight raises questions about the platform's intentions and commitment to creators. If these issues aren't addressed, it implies that the platform might be contributing to the problem.
I realize we're in the minority here, but I work for an educational channel that gets most of our Shorts views from search (both Google and UA-cam), not the feed. As such, it would be great if we could upload custom thumbnails just like we do for long form, or at minimum, select a custom frame on desktop since that's where we do our editing/uploading.
Maybe you should explain why you removed thumbnail selection on a Short video for Creators ever since the December of last year and never re-enabled it. Even Patreon have ability to select thumbnail of the shorts but NOT the UA-cam!
The way UA-cam manages many videos and many channels, then shouldn't the creators have the right to create different content for their channel, while the option of video category is given on the UA-cam dashboard, then the algorithm will send the content to their audience. Why can't UA-cam distribute different works of one creator?
Sir i have some quesions 1) Does youtube short video quality matters if yes what is the best quality for shorts on youtube. 2)Why youtube is not letting us to choose frame of short on desktop. 3)Is it true that a short catch views after 6 hrs of uploading as my does?
Hy UA-cam, I hope that the App is updated soon with the possibility of going through the folders on your phone when you want to post a clip. Currently it just shows all the videos on your phone which can be a lot. If it's an older one you have to swipe for quite a while. Also the volume of the music should be adjustable. For example original video sound louder and music in the background. Thanks and kkep up the good work 🙂
My new channel was going really well, with one video reaching 110,000 views in just 80 days. Then I put up my first short. In one day the short had over 1,000 views. Well, it was in the first few hours. Then it stopped and has only crept up since - over the last 120 days. Meanwhile, almost the moment I put up the short, the views on the video which was going viral, just stopped. It's like the moment that I put up the short, the promotion of all my other videos was halted, never to return. Very disheartening.
My shorts get 10-20 views in the first 6 hours then at EXACTLY 6 hours there is about a 50/50 chance that they get thousands of views over the course of the next hour, or it is dead. After 1 hour it doesn't seem to show in the feed anymore. Impressions drop to nearly nothing and views die down. So if I post at 8pm my shorts don't get pushed until my target audience is asleep in bed. It is not great for commentary on current events.
It's great to know that there's a lot of interest for pushing shorts but as a CC, I have 0 clue what to do with them. I have tried so many different things and after a year, I am as clueless as when I started a year ago. Sometimes I get 0, other 20, other 100 and other 2k and I have no idea why. About the time: I think that's a lie. I've changed the hour when I release shorts MANY times and I've noticed that (in my timezone) it usually performs better at certain hour than uploading them at midnight or early morning
@@TheMicWillExperiment I know there's an audience but as I said, I have experienced that if I upload a short at midnight (again, my timezone) it will 100% tank, no matter how good/bad it is.
still shorts music option is not available in desktop shorts video creator, it is only available to smartphone shorts creators please add this to desktop creators
If you blow up on shorts and get a huge amount of subscribers that don’t watch long form. Will this affect your audience ctr for long form if half your audience won’t watch it or does UA-cam know the audience you gained for shorts won’t normally watch a long form so it doesn’t factor it in ???
Someone did a video on this. They said they created one channel for short form the other for long form. Makes sense but YT should be pushing out twice as much of your video content as shorts
fix your bug where you can't choose a thumbnail from a selection of pics for PC users. it's been more than 6 months. i have a short where there is a surprise near the end and youtube just 'randomly' chooses a pic that spoils the surprise as the thumbnail
Creators: "Can we get custom thumbnails?" UA-cam: "We really don't want creators to kind of overinvest in thumbnails." I usually really like what you guys are doing, but I don't get that one. Creators are telling you that they are willing to invest time in their thumbnails. Is there another reason behind this decision?
I have a question, I have been uploading shorts for six months, and they have consistently gotten views and fallen into the short feed. About two weeks ago, every short that I post does not fall into the shorts feed. That doesn’t just include new shorts, but also old shorts that were previously falling into the feed. Team UA-cam on Twitter did not have this answer, and told me to reach out to UA-cam via Feedback forms, which I did. I was curious if anyone from the creator insider might know anything about this issue? This seems to have happened to a bunch of other creators at about the exact same timeframe. We were all getting consistent views then suddenly zero, and not zero, from the lack of trying in the feed, zero, from the lack of being shown in the feed.
Thanks for a great insightful session. Chirping in with other commenters, thumbnails seems to be an important parameter how small youtubers might get found. Really wish you let us select a thumbnail while uploading from a computer.
More of the audiences prefer shorts/reels over longer videos which is making our view time decrease since the longer videos aren’t being watched. Is YT taking this into account with the payment requirement of 4,000 watches hours per month? Additionally, I really like that I can choose my own thumbnail for my shorts now instead of it being random. It used to pick a thumbnail that didn’t show anything, lol. Im enjoying the changes and very thankful you two made this video to break down how the YT algorithm works. Thank you ❤
@@BaltimoreAndOhioRR are you doing your shorts on a laptop or your phone? I do my full videos on my laptop and can choose my thumbnails but if I do the shorts on my laptop I can’t. Without notice, I saw that on my iPhone I was all of a sudden able to choose my short thumbnails about a month or two ago. On the last screen when you’re putting the description, age, and comment details, there’s the edit pencil icon in the corner of the short pic. Tap that and you can choose 😁
I need to know why they use search terms to put my short out to, that have absolutely nothing to do with my short. Nothing in my video,description, title,tags...then I get a horrible click through rate because the people they push it out to are not interested in my subject. If I make a short about Great Britain then my short should be pushed out to people that are looking up Great Britain material...not minecraft or other weird subjects that have nothing to do with Great Britain. UA-cam is killing my videos because of youtube, not me. Stop putting my shorts out to an audience that isn't interested in the subject of my short
Thanks for providing the data that may allow someone to make better decisions on content creation. How a Short or video turns out is like playing the lottery, though: Some take off, others fizzle out.
Why would we "accept that the short got low views, and move on", when we know that if we repost it, it's going to potentially get a high number of views?
And if you're saying "the algorithm is finding an audience that will enjoy your content and how that goes then determines when it does the "drop off"...", then you need to improve this part of the algorithm and keep finding the audience that enjoys the content. It just doesn't make sense to completely end serving the content to the audience, and quite frankly it's annoying. Another thing - posting time of day DOES matter, why would I expect to get views if my main timezone audience is asleep? I'm uploading on number of channels (this star wars one is just a pass time, the other channels are livelihood) and one of the channels is for kids - why would I post if theyre at SCHOOL for instance, knowing that the views are going to die after around 6 hours. Another thing - posting amount DOES matter - if I upload a short in the middle of the first 6 hour period of another short, it breaks the views for both shorts. It's like we have to wait until the algorithm is DONE with the current short and dumps it, before uploading a new one, otherwise you get no views on the new one. Another bunch of vague / wishy washy answers to the questions the creators NEED ANSWERS to. It's just insulting that these are the "answers" that are given, time and time again. Sorry about the rant, but these answers are not acceptable. Don't even bother doing these interviews if you're just going to give these vague answers that the creators KNOW are BS.
This...
"if I upload a short in the middle of the first 6 hour period of another short, it breaks the views for both shorts. It's like we have to wait until the algorithm is DONE with the current short and dumps it, before uploading a new one, otherwise you get no views on the new one."
Similar thing happened to me as well. But in my case it was one of the shorts that was pushed into the algorithm for a 3rd time. I uploaded a new short while that one was getting views and the new one got 0 views. It was not shown to anyone in shorts feed, but the one that was getting views continued to get views until the push finished. Then I did the same thing once again with the same scenario and the same thing happened.
Exactly! Countless times I go looking for answers only to find there aren't any. Like trying to find answers about hashtags, how many is a good number? I've had the same thing happen with my shorts if I upload 2 in a 24 hour period. One, or both, will just die .
But why does a short that goes viral (millions of view, 100,000 vph) suddenly drop to nothing? If the algorithm is doing so well, why does it suddenly stop?? I feel like this was almost answered in the video but the explanation stopped short: "depending on how it goes". According to my analytics it was going extremely well. So what gives? Great video. Thank you
@Londonphiles2000 points
99% of the money made by shorts are for compilations of stolen content and UA-cam has done nothing to address this. “Funny clips I found” is the most popular form of shorts and it’s killing the rest of us
I only watch shorts with "memes I found on the internet/discord/Instagram" titles. Shorts' algorithm forced me to never experiment.
So many channels on here only make content with stolen clips and never 'create' anything themselves. They need deleting.
All my shorts are original content. I didn’t know this. That sucks
+1 Amen to that. Making NEW content for Shorts that just drown in the 99% stolen shorts is so little rewarding
Shorts full stop are bad for the industry. Boycott vertical format video
It feels like the whole platform is trying to be TikTok now. 90% of the shorts in my feed are stolen, copyright movie content. This is a huge problem and needs to be fixed.
Its been like that for so long🤷♂️ dout that would be fixed😅…..
@@MaxiMumSavageYT This crappiest version of the algorithm has only been since the beginning of 2023 maybe. But yes it keeps getting worse.
@@RunNGunPhoto FACTS🥲
Great questions, great answers, thank you! The only thing I do not agree is the thumbnails. Thumbnails are not only there to attract the viewer to that particular video, but it is also a part of the brand recognition on your channel page. If the Shorts tab is filled with dumb looking frames that are randomly selected, it hurts the image. It shouldn't be that hard to give creators the option to at least pick the frame they want to showcase.
true.
I agree.
I managed to make all my shorts thumbnails uniform. so they all look like my channel. It took me a while to figure it out lol
the option to choose the frame already exists, I believe.
@@SatyarthShankar Only on mobile, so it's useless for people like me who do all their editing on PC.
The most frustrating thing about short is how fast the views can die. A short gets a ton of views and is set on a good vertical trajectory and then it just flattens off all of a sudden. It doesn't taper off is just abruptly stops getting views. The answer in this video didn't really answer anything but it would be great if UA-cam could figure out what's causing this.
this
presumably because it gets lost in the feed after a while unless i guess youtube bumps it? Maybe.
As said, I can only think UA-cam drops you from the fees when you flatline. Makes sense as they are serving up newer content as it's created.
just like beeing controlled by system how many you will get after an hour.. after that you will beeing stopped. Like our shorts are missing from system.
absolutely agree with you. Nothing was answered in this video. Sudden death of shorts are frustrating. I noticed, on average it takes 6-7 hrs to get the peak, and last only 5min. Why can't this be just a normal simple relationship? Why "Algorithms" need to be looking good by complexing things unnecessarily?
How is it possible that 90 % of my shorts "wait" for 6 hours before getting views and that these views are always about the same amount, 2k-3K, no matter on likes or audience retention?
Yes exactly
Yeah. I think youtube is just flooded, hence has almost zero potential for new creators, and they either don't know what to do about it or they don't care.
Let us select the frame the YT short uses as the thumbnail on PC please :)
Yes, this, please!
+1
yes 💯
Absolutely, easy fix!
Captain subtext at 4:30 - UA-cam definitely has no intention of re-enabling the option for custom thumbnails for shorts even though a good half of creators want this.
Which is it? 1. UA-cam finds an audience for my video. 2. UA-cam finds videos for audiences. I've heard both and really, it's not the same thing.
Interesting fact.
First hour your short viewed vs swiped away is 80/20. But if second hour is 50/50. Short grow is killed. Huge drop kills short.
Short perform good when viewed vs swiped away is very stable. Example. First hour 78/22. Second 77.8/22.2. Thirth hour 77.9/22.1 ...
I find the Shorts algorithm bit janky and slow. While TikTok or IG content can pop off in a few hours or days, it can take YT weeks and often months to “find the right audience”, and then pops off. I hope they can improve this.
there seems to be a glitch.. even uploading on the right time can get me 0 views and sometiems uploading on a wrong time can get me 5,000 less than an hour :D
same bro they need to step it up
Very true. Sometimes they don't put the content into the feed at all. Its awful!
Hi Rene great video, but CHOOSING A FRAME on DESKTOP UA-cam studio I think is a priority (or please prioritize), Most of us who edit shorts, edit the shorts in our computer, and we still have to send the file via google drive or whatever to our mobile phone, adding 2 to 3 additional steps just to CHOOSE A FRAME. As mentioned it is just a matter of time but please this will be helpful to us to choose FRAME on Desktop thanks!
I feel like this video answered some of my Shorts questions, but not really.
*First -* Why do shorts need to be vertical? Why not landscape?
*Second -* it's odd that I can't simply pick a frame on desktop for my UA-cam short. I have one video that is about cats, but UA-cam picked one frame with eggs.
*Thirds -* In that same video, it had over 1600 views in the first hour, but then very few views for the next 77 days. The views graph in analytics goes sideways. That doesn't seem natural. I don't know why this happened. But in general, it seems that my shorts get an initial burst of views and then die - except for one about Crossy Road April Fools. April was months ago, but UA-cam keeps sending that one out. Evergreen content seems to be ignored, while unexpected videos get some extra views.
I made one about a Mario Jigsaw Puzzle - on Mario Day. You'd think that would do amazing. You'd think cute cat videos would perform well. They did not!
Also, when I watch shorts on UA-cam, it seems to show the same ones over and over. There doesn't seem to be enough variety, but it seems that so many people are making shorts. I'm thinking of stopping though, as the format seems less popular than my channel's traditional content. When sorted by views, the 30th video is a short. 29 traditional videos outperform shorts… and my channel has over two dozen shorts.
4:30 all well and good, but then YT decides to use valuable space on end screens for Shorts, with horrible frames instead of thumbnails. As predominantly a long form content creator, I'd rather show a proper thumbnail. Give creators the choice to create a thumb or not for Shorts.
This guy is clearly not trusting creators with choice
If thumbnails can be attached while uploading short videos in the mobile version, why not in the PC version? You should also see this. Although it is said that thumbnails are not an issue, I think thumbnails are very important to express the external beauty of a video. It is important to have the option to select thumbnails on the computer.
Absolutely right!
can yall just make an app for shorts so they can stop crashing long form content lol
Old UA-cam Algorithm Works better for me
could you guys add in the short reel, a reminder for long-form content from channels that we are already subscribed to? Short reel's biggest flaw at the moment is it doesn't remind viewers that they are subscribed to channels that make long-form content and they may have a new video released. As of now once you get in the Shorts reel section you are pretty much stuck there.
This explains nothing of relevance to small creators like myself. We upload a short, it gets pumped for maybe 1k views max for an hour or two, then all of a sudden flatlines to never receive a view again. why cant youtube address this?
Short is testing from first second.
Even first swipe away can destroy short.
Interesting fact.
First hour your short viewed vs swiped away is 80/20. But if second hour is 50/50. Short grow is killed. Huge drop kills short.
Short perform good when viewed vs swiped away is very stable. Example. First hour 78/22. Second 77.8/22.2. Thirth hour 77.9/22.1 ....
this guy doesn't want to admit that shorts really destroys your long videos , in fact, UA-cam shorts really destroyed my youtube income. i have more than 700,000 subscribers but my income is only 1/7 from what i get when i have 100.000 subscribers. When you upload shorts videos, youtube no longer push your long video like they used to. You like it or not that's the fact. That's why lots of youtubers now start to move to Facebook
Google sucks
Ask @PirateSoftware he knows the way for shorts lmao
That's been my experience too. A few of my shorts went viral and although they have generated for me tens of thousands of new subscribers, my number of long-form content views has gone down as well as my income. I do wonder though if it has more to do with a general trend of viewers watching more shorts content than it has to do with the algorithm punishing me for making successful shorts.
UA-cam doesn't want more creators to get monetised or to have more income but they just want to use our channel as money making opportunities with their adverts. Anyway that's how I view it.
Todd, if you care about being creator first - you NEED to adjust the linking change that is coming on August 31st. You've been telling us to make evergreen content for the last few years - and this change is horrible and will effect small creators really negatively. Overnight my whole back log of shorts will stop converting. - Allow creators who are verified and two factored to still keep links in their shorts.
What changes are they making?
not happeneing spam
@@mrswagg22music It's happening. I experienced it today.
Pleased you asked the question about custom thumbnails on Shorts Rene.
I would like to challenge the answer given "Being on the shelf on shorts is not where most of the traffic comes from?"
Given what the data is telling us, I would argue that if you are intentionally making search based content, being on the shelf really does matter with a good thumbnail.
For example a video we made about "Monetization Requirements" in which I had to hack a thumbnail into the short (through a workaround) now appears on the shorts shelf when you search for "Monetization Requirements". This Short is getting 40% of its traffic from search Vs 13% of its traffic from Shorts feed. In another example where the search term is "youtube shorts thumbnail" the search traffic is as high as 62%.
Appreciate this is anecdotal but every time we target search based content and have used a custom thumbnail, views from search traffic exceed short feed traffic leading me to believe having a good thumbnail is important... unless I'm misinterpreting how search views are tracked on shorts videos, in which case, it needs to be tracked differently or explained to creators.
Another anecdote... I've noticed almost every time I see a viral (+5 mil view) short on my homepage the video has a great title and thumbnail. Most of the non-viral shorts on my homepage have a random screenshot that doesn't make sense with the title.
100% agree. And if you can make your short thumbnail more appealing who knows who'll click on it and what that will lead to.
Hello @vidIQ! Off topic but I subscribed and binge watched your videos to learn as much as possible as a new content creator. Recently got monetized after being on and off of UA-cam. Thanks!
My most viewed short by a long shot has 47,5% of it's traffic from searches. I got really lucky and ended up with a perfect thumbnail by chance.
If you are not careful you will be cancelled for questioning YT
That initial push and burst of views then flat line is the most puzzling/annoying/challenging part of it. As much as we can look at the metrics (AVD, swipe away, likes/comments, etc.) there's still no sense of what the audience is and when we've successfully pushed the right audience buttons - it's binary, either more views or not - but knowing what audience liked it and what audience didn't like it would help so much.
I think you mean: "What the algorithm randomly selected audience liked or didn't like" . There's a major difference there especially if the numbers are in the hundreds where its very unlikely any meaningful conclusion can be reached even by an AI. Its like playing roulette, you pick a number and let it spin, whatever happens happens. I've tested this with other creators and this whole talk of "audience=algorithm" is 100% not true.
Well said@@OnSpotTV. He also said if the short doesn't do well we should just accept it and move on. But why would we do that, when we know the algorithm basically showed the short to a duff audience, and therefore reposting it may enable it to be shown to a better audience and get much better view numbers (which is what happens!)
@@StarWarsUpdate we're all getting punished for our hard work because they want to fix the algorithm to be "safe" from being abused by a minority, i don't understand how this is a good thing in their view. This is happening for all videos, not only shorts
You can 100 percent repost the exact same video without altering anything. It doesn't follow any rules like a standard video. And I would if you felt your video should have done better. If you are worried you can always private the poor preforming version@@StarWarsUpdate
we knew for a fact that our audience is there, however even after 155 original shorts, the YT algorithm somehow is not reaching that audience. Even though from time to time we get a jump and it seems like we are able to reach our audience, the short just suddenly stops getting shown, we can clearly see that in the analytics. This behavior is pretty demotivating to be honest, since it looks like finally YT found our audience and then bamm, nothing!
I feel like this video didn't answer a lot of the questions asked. We have a dedicated shorts channel to complement our main channel because we don't want to flood the main channel with shorts. However, it seems like no matter what we try, our shorts channel isn't gaining traction. We're fairly confident it's not a "content" issue because the main channel has over a million subscribers. However, our shorts channel only gets a couple thousand views per short and then drops off. The view durations and "like" percentages are very high, yet UA-cam doesn't find these shorts to be worthy of being in people's feeds. It's very frustrating and discouraging.
I don't think they know what their algorithm is doing
@@rtyughvbn12 I think he knows but he doesn't want to reveal much to the audience
I used to thousands of views on my own content in shorts but now my views don't even reach 100. The thing is UA-cam doesn't even care for small creators who are doing their own contents rather than stealing someone else's content and putting it in shorts. Just tell directly you guys don't care about small creators, only spending more money on bigger content creators.
Why are most new channels experiencing the issue where their shorts dont even get a seed audience? The shorts get 0 views? Is this an issue on the creator's side? This has happned on my channel and many other creators.
That's cool but I still believe thumbnails on shorts are beneficial especially if you're researching for a specific video or info.
Bro said posting time doesnt matter💀
A question that still has not been answered: Why not allow one -- just one -- mid-roll ad insert on videos 5 minutes to 8 minutes in length? This would be lucrative for creators as well as for UA-cam. Five-minute videos can readily support one mid-roll ad.
Maybe next conversation, a little serious questions like ...if UA-cam is suggesting videos to "interest Audience" who swipes🤔 Why shorts reach stops at few thousand when there are 14 million users on UA-camshorts...means someone/ something monitors...what are the break evens ...when available maybe another conversation
All this but shorts not even getting pushed out or just pause at 1k - 3k views, and then wanting us to get 3M views in 90 days is crazy that would take years, it deffo should be shorter to get monetized
Can you PLEASE add a shorts tab on YT Studio Desktop? Why has this taken so long?
its just youtube what do you expect
right thought
like a sort function?
i can't believe I have to edit it on my computer, send it to my phone to upload it so that i can use the frame i want for the thumbnail, and then go back to my computer to fill in the rest of the info that it doesn't give you the option to edit on the phone... 😑
Wonderful interview. But One thing really disturbs me in shorts. My all shorts videos gets struck after getting 2k views. Same for many creators i see. pl focus on that aspect in detailed video with responsible people at UA-cam.
I do agree with thumbnails, because thumbnails can be deceiving, but if youtube picks one, user know what they are gonna watch.
Just a tip. Create the short on your pc. Send to your email. Download to your phone. Upload your short from UA-cam app. You can then choose the thumbnail frame. You can even dedicate a 1 second frame at the end to be a custom thumbnail then select that. Thumbnails do matter. At least when the auto selected frame/thumbnail by YT is unappealing
Good idea, but there's no excuse for this to be necessary. Google/UA-cam is the largest in the world. Such poor design is inexcusable and just asinine.
Some of my best videos, never take off. The most basic thing can explode, while I have shorts that are so much better and nothing happened to them. I started to repost in the beginning, but it never considered it spam. I'd post a video and it would be less than 10 views, then it gets 2000 on the repost 1 week later. Subscribers do not make any impact on my short viewership.
How do you re-post them? Do you completely delete them or private them and then re-upload?
@@djordjek3916 I ended up just un-listing them at first, but decided to delete them later on. I stopped doing it though, only did it a few times. It is what it is, but it sucks when you work on something for hours editing vs something that takes 10 minutes. lol
I think being able to pick the thumbnail again would go a long way. I stopped doing shorts because every single video is a terrible thumbnail that doesn't align with my video at all. I understand not having custom thumbnails but at least give the option to select what is show can go a long way 🤙🏿
Yes I totally agree. I swear, it always feels like YT picks the worsttt shot to display as the "thumbnail" for my shorts 😣😣 And I'm just like "Really?? You couldn't have picked something better?"
@yellowberrio absolutely that's me every single time lol. Meanwhile I see other pages with the perfect shot on all their videos and I'm just like how 😅
@@StreetCatSafari are you able to pick on mobile?
@@JonathanWinbush Omgahhh yess I always see other channels be having some much more appealing shots for their thumbnails yet YT chooses the worst ones for me. Sorta makes me feel like YT hates me or something 😅😅
@@yellowberrio yea mine always look like Im in the middle of a fart I'm like come on I can't catch a break! 🤣🤣
I prefer the option to pick my frame as a thumbnail in the Shorts. Thank you!! This let's us pick a nicer frame for our page, but alleviates the stress of making a "real" thumbnail.
I would disagree about timing. Maybe the algorithm doesn't have coding for timing, but you want to post when your audience is most active. i.e. If you are targeting students you probably won't have a great view average posting while they are in morning classes. I find my audience turns up more in the late evening for Shorts.
Personally I love that this has been added. I have gained viewers on my mid form videos and long form streams because of the Shorts I have posted. I love that you are giving us more options to reach our target people and gather the communities we want. Thank you!!
UA-cam Algorithm not working at all for my channel... I have 127K subscribers! Only 100 subscribers receive notifications!
How do you know
Are those 127k organically subscribed ones or paid oned
@@JosiahTheMinor you look into the analytics
@@JustCrushit probably paid 💀
@JustCrushit I have far fewer subs but 100% organic and I get messages almost daily of subscribing and the bell don't work, AND that people are being forcefully unsubscribbed and have to constantly resubscribe.
We believe that thumbnails would not only encourage creators to be more, well, creative, but would reel in more desktop users. Taking a look at the desktop UA-cam, MOST if not ALL of the shorts that are on the front row, have a relevant/interesting thumbnail by default. This is either completely by chance, or the thumbnail DOES play a role.
Can publishing Shorts have any affect on Long Form performance? Concerned about negative affects on Long Form.
This is a great question! Commenting so I can read the responses too.
They'd never admit that.
I need to know
The thing I don't understand about the Shorts algorithm is that it seems to have a "delay time" before it finds its audience. There have been a few times where I post to Reels, TikTok, and Shorts simultaneously: on the first two platforms, the views take off immediately, but Shorts will get a handful of views that come almost exclusively from the existing audience/notifications. Then, after about 6 or 7 days, the video seems to "hit" the Shorts feed, and it takes off on UA-cam.
Why does it take so long for a Short to pick up views? Shouldn't it hit the Shorts shelf immediately and sink or swim based on how the audience receives it? Why the "delay"?
I've seen other people talk about this and honestly wonder the same. It doesn't happen to me normally my short content will get a few hundred to a few thousand within the first 12-24 hours it always seems. I am curious on how the delay happens though as it could mean other things for content that was originally shown, got a few chunk of views, and then could possibly be thrown back into the algorithm at a later date?
it is finding your audience ..its not about views its about watch time
For me it's like if i post on 9 pm and the audience im getting from a country are not in there peak hours that time because of the time difference. But after one day it just stop. Any advice for that
Ours only take an hour or two before we get our big push, it could be because you're a bigger channel though
I have the same experience. I've had shorts that get millions of views on Tiktok/Reels within days, then it has taken up to 82 days before they get picked up in Shorts
Thank you making this video and for keeping shorts under 60. That's a good call. On the topic of thumbnails though - I still believe that choice is the way to go. If users don't want to worry about it then let them not worry. I care what my shorts shelf looks like. Just because a billion people don't care doesn't mean that *MY* feelings are invalid.
agreed
recently i’m in my flop era, no matter what i post, when i post, nothing gets put into the algorithm. when i started my channel i was THRIVING. getting so many views and now i have a vid with almost 2 mill. but now i’m getting no views :( makes me sad cuz i randomly stopped gaining views
It seems like, if someone just focuses on quantity… they take off and blow up… quality is a secondary item. Which stinks because I’ve unfollowed so many people because it feels like spam
I really hope that the posting frequency does not matter in getting views. It will lead into lack of quality, like we´ve seen in other social media platforms.
He answers some of the questions about the algorithm like it could be this, or it could be that as if he doesn't know. But he's the head of the department. Why wouldn't he know?
Truth is painful. They cant say that we created algorithm who supports big youtubers.
Oh but i watched your channel and waaau. your shorts views are small.
Maybe a lot people swipes away.
The more unstable your hourly *viewed vs swiped* away statistic. The less views you will get.
his answers were so vague... right?
Good point about not wasting time on the shorts' thumbnails. Also, there's a lot of people taking other UA-camrs clips and adding them on their channel, making money from someone else's hard work.
3.7 Million videos are uploaded daily, that's around 271,330 Hours of video length time per day...those numbers are insane when you think about a competition of who can get their videos pushed to the front. The "Gold Rush" of social media/UA-cam is long over, it's all about viewer retention/paid advertising to get pushed to the front. My 2 cents, make videos of what you're interested in, help people out, teach people, grow a community and maybe by some longshot one day people will find your stuff through the billions of videos and algorithm manipulation.
The comment "if you upload on desktop it's higher resolution"...is that true? I found that uploading on an iPhone gives SD and HD options, but on my Samsung Flip it only gave the SD option. I never upload on desktop because of the lack of thumbnail control
"Does the video resolution make a difference?
Typically, I produce videos in resolutions such as 720p and 1080p. My inquiry is whether videos in 4K or 8K receive preferential treatment in the algorithm compared to videos of standard quality?"
Reposting shorts does work. I've posted a short that received almost no views. If I feel confident that it would have received more views, then I recreate it and post it a second time. One time the first post only got 14 views, but the second post received 2k views. Also, if you post shorts too closely together, often only the most recent short will be disseminated while the first short will be forgotten by the algorithm.
How do you re-post them? Do you "delete them forever on YT" or just private them, then re-upload few days later and maybe delete the old one? I completely agree with the last sentence. I had shorts that I uploaded while of the previous shorts was pushed into the algorithm for the 2nd or 3rd time. The new one was not shown in shorts feed at all. It got 0 views. Looks like when that is the case, you have to wait until that push is finished.
@djordjek3916 That's exactly what I do; I just put the video to private or delete it, then I re-record the video and post it again. If you make a short private, and then a few days later make it public again, the UA-cam algorithm will recognize it as the same short and will not distribute it. That has been my consistent experience, at least.
I found shorts algorithm very baffling, especially during its initial burst. Every time I upload my shorts, pre-burst viewed vs swiped is always bias around the viewed side. Which usually is around 70% and above. Which gives me good indication that my shorts are in good quality. The number likes I received before the burst also reinforce that idea. But when the burst happens, it destroys that indicator down to 30% area. Which ruin that video chances of any future promotion. I can't even tell whether my shorts are bad or good since the way how shorts algorithm works. I mean, I have 8 shorts that have gain views over 100k+ and the highest is 800k+ views. That is first time in my life that one of my videos reach somewhere near 1 million and I have been trying hard on UA-cam since 2016. Now they all dwindle around 1k+ views average and only a few of them are lucky enough to get 10k+ views. This indicates at some point you guys change how the algorithm works, to the point it is more RNG then algorithmic. I'm not sure that is the case but it feel it is.
I don't agree on the thumbnail, you should at least give us the options to choose the thumbnails from the short itself. Cause one of my old short (uploaded around January) has a sudden increase of views 100+ views per 60 minute almost everyday. While my latest shorts doesn't get the same views even it is based on the same topic. I suspect it is because the new shorts thumbnail is automatically poorly chosen compare to the old one. Since the old short got its second chance from the UA-cam search and home page.
you can choose your short thumbnail if you upload on mobile. still can't do that on PC, though.
Mmmm to be honest I don't believe he said much that we don't already know. The problem is that content isn't randomly sent. If they don't like it, they don't distribute it. In other words the content is skewed. That should be clear.
Low viewed vs sviped ratio and bye bye. success is super random
There is some issue with Shorts as on our channel it feels like no matter how good or bad you make a short the maximum it reaches 2500 views and after that it just stucks, and its not with 1 short but with all the short that we make on our channel most of the shorts stuck at 2500 Views
I get not making custom thumbnails for shorts, but I'd love to at least be able to pick the frame used for it. I do edited shorts uploaded on PC.
The only way so far sadly is uploading on your phone, but then the quality drops a lot
i feel like this was the most round about answer - just keep making shorts and make your voice heard is what I heard - eventually you will be rewarded with your right audience. - that would have saved me 11:32 watching general information haha! thanks for this, now lemme get back to posting this short...
somehting ive noticed since I make pokemon go content is that the shorts can easily reappear when certain Pokemon are in raids and I'll get an uptick in views from that with all sources included. Shorts arent necessarily ephemeral in the feed, they will pop back up if they are evergreen content or interest in the subject matter grows, at least in my experience so far
Great info here. Gonna start posting more shorts soon. Just hope it doesn't mess up my long form videos 🤞
All the right questions were asked but only a few truly were amswered. Ex., hashtags. I still dont know if they are useful.
I wish you would address the issue with viral Shorts that get marked by your system as "Kids". It happens a lot to me and my colleagues, and the problem is, that any viral Shorts that you mark as "kids" stops performing immediately and forever, zero views, instead of millions. Also, thumbnails are critical, I hope we will be able to select a frame soon. Also, in my experience (I've tested it numerous times), the same Shorts will get a different amount of impressions on different channels, on a larger channel the same Short will get more views. A tip - you really need to upload Shorts regularly if you want impressions. Finally, on my shorts feed I don't see names of channels, only title. So, I don't click. In my humble opinion you need to add the name of the channel somewhere so people can click on favorite channels.
thats right but my shorts didnt gain view and i dont understand why really
You can choose which frame already when uploading a short on your phone, but you can't change it afterwards. I always forget to select it 😅
yes right
@@kattiis I upload on my computer, so I don't really know how to do it...
You can't do it on desktop :/ @@pipecleanercraftsb
Shorts views now go with low counts.
I want one thing from shorts and that thing is the option to block them on mobile/pc integrated in the youtube platform,I ended up not using youtube at all because I get shorts recommended and they are not what I want to see on youtube,long form packs a lot more quality in information and such an option would be verry good for people that don't like shorts
100% true
good thinkking
There has to be some way to balance this. I love the little shorts shelf on my home page, because I actually get to look and choose what I watch, knowing it's only going to be a minute or less, no pressure to commit lots of time. But yeah, I bet shorts feel really cloggy and in the way for people who are only here for the long videos. And we don't even need to talk about search results. Those are a nightmare for no reason.
I am new to UA-cam and have always been puzzled by a burst of views and then a flat line. So thank you so much for explaining all this and other aspects of the UA-cam algorithm.
That "Burst of views" mostly happens with my roblox shorts it rarely happens with my other shorts that are not roblox
I released a series of shorts (10-15 sec) and the first 12 had consistently between 1.2k and 1.7k views and all of a sudden, the same concept of short video decreased to 70 views. I understood your explanation, but you could (or should) program the algorithm to keep on finding an audience in different places of the "matrix" instead of dumping the content to oblivion. I am not a programmer and I don't understand how it works, but maybe you should include some kind of geographic search into the equation. I have a channel in Portuguese. My content should be available in countries where Portuguese language is spoken, and not in places where language, instead of content, is an obstacle. If someone in South Africa or Pakistan or México, is confronted by my short video and dislikes it, why should I be punished by it, if my content is being shown in the wrong places?
TRUE
@@StreetCatSafari my channel is new. I used to gain 3/4 followers every short. And because of this adjustment I get zero.
Appreciate the "Insider Scoop!" to verify thoughts and intuition and dispel rumor and hearsay! 🖖
Thank you for this video! Every question answered is one that I've personally asked or been asked by my creator friends. It feels very direct, honest, and informative.
It is very apparent that this video was directly driven by creators on UA-cam. Would love to see more like this!
Being able to pick a frame thumbnail on PC would be amazing. Most of my workflow is through PC.
Why some of us can't add music with original background sound in shorts, but some youtubers upload with original background sound with music ???
By _completely arbitrarily_ taking away the ability to add thumbnails to shorts, UA-cam is actively HURTING - _not helping_ my channel. Sorry Todd, I don't need you to make a judgement call on whether I'm "over investing" in thumbnails. I need you to put that functionality back in place, the way it originally worked and quit monkeying what what you _think_ I should be focused on.
at first when i started posting shorts, they don't seem to do well. i felt maybe that's because my channel is still small. but after maybe the first two weeks, they start taking off. so now I don't bother. i just try to make them better. shorts have really helped me get to where I am now.
Would be nice to link a Short to the Long video like another platform does
You can accomplish this partially by using the "remix" feature. If you make sure long form videos easy to convert to shorts via remix this works pretty well
You can do this already.
its discouraging as I have 30+ shorts posted and not a single view, its like UA-cam wont even show my video to anyone so then it wont keep getting recommended as there is no engagement :(
Trust me! That guy is telling the truth👍🏻
To genuinely support small creators and original content, it's crucial to combat bot manipulation in all video lengths, as algorithms are at risk daily. The suggestion is to introduce a verification process for comments to trace engagement origins and ensure UA-cam remains unbiased. Furthermore, to create a positive societal impact, the platform should rigorously check the health sources it promotes and ensure they're free from misinformation. The current bot-boosted channels have allowed harmful content to spread, sidelining small creators and fostering misinformation. This oversight raises questions about the platform's intentions and commitment to creators. If these issues aren't addressed, it implies that the platform might be contributing to the problem.
I realize we're in the minority here, but I work for an educational channel that gets most of our Shorts views from search (both Google and UA-cam), not the feed. As such, it would be great if we could upload custom thumbnails just like we do for long form, or at minimum, select a custom frame on desktop since that's where we do our editing/uploading.
Maybe you should explain why you removed thumbnail selection on a Short video for Creators ever since the December of last year and never re-enabled it. Even Patreon have ability to select thumbnail of the shorts but NOT the UA-cam!
Excellent, fast paced & concise presentation. This is one of your most effective videos
The way UA-cam manages many videos and many channels, then shouldn't the creators have the right to create different content for their channel, while the option of video category is given on the UA-cam dashboard, then the algorithm will send the content to their audience. Why can't UA-cam distribute different works of one creator?
Thanks for the information especially around remove shorts that don’t take off. Important for all content.
Sir i have some quesions
1) Does youtube short video quality matters if yes what is the best quality for shorts on youtube.
2)Why youtube is not letting us to choose frame of short on desktop.
3)Is it true that a short catch views after 6 hrs of uploading as my does?
How would you explain about shorts 0 times shown on shorts feed?
Hy UA-cam, I hope that the App is updated soon with the possibility of going through the folders on your phone when you want to post a clip. Currently it just shows all the videos on your phone which can be a lot. If it's an older one you have to swipe for quite a while. Also the volume of the music should be adjustable. For example original video sound louder and music in the background. Thanks and kkep up the good work 🙂
My new channel was going really well, with one video reaching 110,000 views in just 80 days. Then I put up my first short. In one day the short had over 1,000 views. Well, it was in the first few hours. Then it stopped and has only crept up since - over the last 120 days. Meanwhile, almost the moment I put up the short, the views on the video which was going viral, just stopped. It's like the moment that I put up the short, the promotion of all my other videos was halted, never to return. Very disheartening.
Thank you for this commentary! It was nice to hear these questions answered from a UA-cam shorts representative.
What I have found more with Shorts is silly stuff quick, shorts. Doing something with value, long. Just my 2 cents but still learning this crazy life😂
My shorts get 10-20 views in the first 6 hours then at EXACTLY 6 hours there is about a 50/50 chance that they get thousands of views over the course of the next hour, or it is dead. After 1 hour it doesn't seem to show in the feed anymore. Impressions drop to nearly nothing and views die down. So if I post at 8pm my shorts don't get pushed until my target audience is asleep in bed. It is not great for commentary on current events.
It's great to know that there's a lot of interest for pushing shorts but as a CC, I have 0 clue what to do with them. I have tried so many different things and after a year, I am as clueless as when I started a year ago.
Sometimes I get 0, other 20, other 100 and other 2k and I have no idea why. About the time: I think that's a lie. I've changed the hour when I release shorts MANY times and I've noticed that (in my timezone) it usually performs better at certain hour than uploading them at midnight or early morning
In my experience, time of day has little factor, as there is always an audience on UA-cam.
@@TheMicWillExperiment I know there's an audience but as I said, I have experienced that if I upload a short at midnight (again, my timezone) it will 100% tank, no matter how good/bad it is.
still shorts music option is not available in desktop shorts video creator, it is only available to smartphone shorts creators
please add this to desktop creators
If you blow up on shorts and get a huge amount of subscribers that don’t watch long form. Will this affect your audience ctr for long form if half your audience won’t watch it or does UA-cam know the audience you gained for shorts won’t normally watch a long form so it doesn’t factor it in ???
Someone did a video on this. They said they created one channel for short form the other for long form. Makes sense but YT should be pushing out twice as much of your video content as shorts
fix your bug where you can't choose a thumbnail from a selection of pics for PC users. it's been more than 6 months. i have a short where there is a surprise near the end and youtube just 'randomly' chooses a pic that spoils the surprise as the thumbnail
Creators: "Can we get custom thumbnails?"
UA-cam: "We really don't want creators to kind of overinvest in thumbnails."
I usually really like what you guys are doing, but I don't get that one. Creators are telling you that they are willing to invest time in their thumbnails. Is there another reason behind this decision?
I have a question, I have been uploading shorts for six months, and they have consistently gotten views and fallen into the short feed. About two weeks ago, every short that I post does not fall into the shorts feed. That doesn’t just include new shorts, but also old shorts that were previously falling into the feed. Team UA-cam on Twitter did not have this answer, and told me to reach out to UA-cam via Feedback forms, which I did. I was curious if anyone from the creator insider might know anything about this issue? This seems to have happened to a bunch of other creators at about the exact same timeframe. We were all getting consistent views then suddenly zero, and not zero, from the lack of trying in the feed, zero, from the lack of being shown in the feed.
Fantastic information! Thank you Creator Insider Team!
You really do your research!
❤❤❤
yes
yes i agree
Thanks for a great insightful session. Chirping in with other commenters, thumbnails seems to be an important parameter how small youtubers might get found. Really wish you let us select a thumbnail while uploading from a computer.
More of the audiences prefer shorts/reels over longer videos which is making our view time decrease since the longer videos aren’t being watched. Is YT taking this into account with the payment requirement of 4,000 watches hours per month?
Additionally, I really like that I can choose my own thumbnail for my shorts now instead of it being random. It used to pick a thumbnail that didn’t show anything, lol. Im enjoying the changes and very thankful you two made this video to break down how the YT algorithm works. Thank you ❤
YT has changed this to 3000 watch hours have they?
@@intuitivediane oh ok, I was still under the impression it was 4,000. Thank you for letting me know 🥰
I thought it was 3k hours per year?
You can choose your own thumbnail now? I sure can't!
@@BaltimoreAndOhioRR are you doing your shorts on a laptop or your phone? I do my full videos on my laptop and can choose my thumbnails but if I do the shorts on my laptop I can’t. Without notice, I saw that on my iPhone I was all of a sudden able to choose my short thumbnails about a month or two ago. On the last screen when you’re putting the description, age, and comment details, there’s the edit pencil icon in the corner of the short pic. Tap that and you can choose 😁
I need to know why they use search terms to put my short out to, that have absolutely nothing to do with my short. Nothing in my video,description, title,tags...then I get a horrible click through rate because the people they push it out to are not interested in my subject. If I make a short about Great Britain then my short should be pushed out to people that are looking up Great Britain material...not minecraft or other weird subjects that have nothing to do with Great Britain. UA-cam is killing my videos because of youtube, not me. Stop putting my shorts out to an audience that isn't interested in the subject of my short
This was great! A lot of common questions creators have for shorts was covered here by someone in the know! I got some good nuggets out of this!
Hey, it's me, Travel Maximizer. I find this video interesting and useful. Thank you for taking the time to review this topic.
Thanks for providing the data that may allow someone to make better decisions on content creation. How a Short or video turns out is like playing the lottery, though: Some take off, others fizzle out.
@angurtube Thanks for the comment and feedback. At least I know I'm not alone. 🙂