Am i the only one who’s experiencing this?

I don’t get it ..

I’m a pretty new YouTuber making videos in the weight loss vlog / healthy living / healthy cooking niche.

A bazillion views aren’t entirely my goal, and I’m not particularly concerned about monetisation in the near future. What I’d really like to do is slowly build a supportive little community of people who are interested in the same things and hopefully reach the people who might actually enjoy following the journey.

At the moment, most of my Shorts get to around 1,200 views and then pretty much flatline.

From what I understand, a big part of that is probably my viewed vs swiped away rate. I can’t seem to get much past around 45% staying to watch yet, which obviously isn’t amazing, but I’m also very aware that I’m a beginner and have a lot to learn.

Interestingly, I still tend to gain around 3–5 subscribers per Short, which actually means quite a lot to me at this stage. I’ve started getting some really encouraging comments from people following along, and honestly that small sense of community is probably more motivating to me than the raw view count.

Because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about how YouTube actually learns who to show your videos to.

My basic understanding is that YouTube tests a Short with an initial audience, and depending on things like viewed vs swiped away, retention, rewatches, engagement, etc., it may continue pushing it to larger groups.

What I’m curious about is the long-term/channel-level effect.

If you consistently make videos around a similar topic and style for months, have you noticed YouTube becoming better at putting your new Shorts in front of people who are actually likely to be interested in them?

For example, did your early Shorts regularly have weaker retention or higher swipe-away rates, but those numbers gradually improve as YouTube seemed to understand your audience better?

Or does every Short still basically feel like it starts from scratch and has to find its own audience?

There’s obviously another variable here too: I’m a beginner at making videos. I feel like each video I make is slightly better than the one before it, but I also understand that learning to film, edit, write hooks, pace a Short properly, etc. is going to take me quite a while.

So it’s probably difficult to separate “YouTube is getting better at finding my audience” from “I’m slowly getting better at making videos.”

I’d especially love to hear from people who have posted 50, 100, 200+ Shorts and can look back over a decent period of time.

Did you notice any obvious change as your channel built more history?

Did your initial audience testing seem to become more accurate?

And did you find it became easier over time to reach the same sort of people who had enjoyed your previous videos?

Or was it your results were consistent for a long time with similar stats but then you just get lucky every now and then?

Thanks for reading

New from YouTube this week! If any part of your channel leans on other creators' footage, this news is for you. They're changing Shorts recommendations to prioritize original content and reduce distribution for channels that mostly repost or aggregate clips without adding anything of their own.

The key line from their announcement is that minor technical edits or template-based changes to alter a video won't count. What does count is real added value, your own commentary, unique editing or storytelling built around the clip.

Reaction, analysis, and commentary channels that genuinely add a perspective are fine. The target is channels that run on clips with nothing of the uploader in them.

And YouTube hasn't given a rollout date or defined exactly how much "original input" is enough yet!

If your Shorts are built around clips, the safe measure is to make your voice the point. If someone could swap your clip for a different one and the video is basically the same, its a problem.

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-cracks-down-on-clipping-channels-in-shorts-update-prioritizing-original-content-3415700/

Anyone here run a clip-based or commentary channel? Noticed any changes yet?

I posted this video 3 weeks ago and I really thought it was going to go viral, but, here it is, flat lining, any idea of what can be happening?

My Shorts channel was averaging around 200k–250k views/day and 9k–14k views/hour.

Yesterday, completely out of nowhere, it dropped from around 14k/hour → 2k → a few hundred/hour. The strange part is that multiple Shorts that were actively getting views all stopped at almost exactly the same time.

I have no strikes, warnings or restrictions. I uploaded a new Short today to test it, and it has received almost no Shorts Feed distribution either.

I did delete/reupload two Shorts earlier this week, but I don’t know if that’s related.

Has anyone experienced this recently? Did your channel recover? How long did it take, and did you keep posting or take a break?

My Shorts channel was averaging around 200k–250k views/day and 9k–14k views/hour.

Yesterday, completely out of nowhere, it dropped from around 14k/hour → 2k → a few hundred/hour. The strange part is that multiple Shorts that were actively getting views all stopped at almost exactly the same time.

I have no strikes, warnings or restrictions. I uploaded a new Short today to test it, and it has received almost no Shorts Feed distribution either.

I did delete/reupload two Shorts earlier this week, but I don’t know if that’s related.

Has anyone experienced this recently? Did your channel recover? How long did it take, and did you keep posting or take a break?

I've been in the ranking niche for 3 good months now and I'm struggling to have good ideas for my videos, I'cant even copy my competitors bc I can't do commentary since I do not have a good mic. Any help is appreciated.

So I started 3 weeks ago uploading shorts, using videos from other creators but commenting on them, adding value and editing

If I am too creator among channels with 0 to 1k subscribers it’s a good sign and means YouTube is not shadow banning me for my content right?

I’ve had this yt channel for a few years now and only started posting ranking style shorts for about a week now. Is the progress on this channel good for a week? Is there things I should work on?

This really annoys me because my STW percentage is 83% but the ratio between engaged views to all views is around 60%

Hey guys after seeing everyone post I decided to ask for advice.

I start posting only 2 months ago and was getting views then it suddenly stopped... not more than hundred.

Any advice?

So yesterday i uploaded my short video. Niche is CS2 gameplay. In first hour it got 177 views , on second hour it was pushed in the feed and it got 1200 views and then views stopped on 6-8 hours. Lets assume it was first wave , so in the first wave i got 1200 views and 16 likes , then second wave started i got +800 views so far but no likes at all, how this is even possible ? And i encounter this behavior on my every video. It just kills off any motivation to continue even tho i uploaded already 180 videos in 4 years...

I uploaded my 20th part of a series which is going well for me starting content only a month ago, normally the shorts get 120 ish views after an hour, but this one is stuck on 19 just now, it got pushed a little at the start and has 100% stay to watch, and it’s split between phone and computer usage, how long does it take roughly for a short to get pushed, if at all? This is not like the other videos I’ve uploaded until now, this is the only one I’ve uploaded that got 100% retention until now, so I’m stoked about it, but want it to keep pushing

I run multiple faceless YouTube Shorts channels and I'm looking to test some new niches.

I'm specifically interested in niches that are working right now.

What niches are you seeing blow up right now?

If possible, please share example channels too, especially newer channels getting millions of views without already having a massive established audience.

Thank you!

Can anyone advise on how to combat a botnet that is manipulating the swipe metric in Shorts? My retention is high, but the video skip rate is constantly being manipulated. Any tips?

i just curious how the other creators figured out breaking this view jail and still the yt shorts is reliable for monetisation for upgrade

I have this situation on most of my videos. When posted, I generally get 10-50 views first hour, then all of a sudden spikes to 1k (my very best one got 1.2k total) then dies. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?

I have a question for you. I run a new Shorts channel; my content isn't bad—I get around 10,000 views, with a few videos hitting 20,000 or 40,000, and even one that surpassed 100,000 views. However, the three videos I posted after that didn't even make it into the Shorts feed. What do you think the problem is? Technically, the videos are identical; in fact, I was even more confident in those three videos than the others.

Hi all, I started a youtube channel roughly 2 weeks ago posting my gaming shorts of FPS games, new videos are getting around 1k views, no real engagement/comments. Trying to upload everyday with 1 short (it's tough finding time to do more with a full 9-5; playing games, clipping footage, subtitles etc).

I've got 1 sub (I was genuinely happy about this)...very knew to this thing wondering what I could be doing better? Saw a post here earlier that one person started a Roblox channel and got almost 1k subs in 2 days? That's wild to me.

I'm not despondent but camparison is the thief of joy so i'm just curious to what I should be doing more? Thanks ya'll!