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What counts as a view on YouTube?
Helping understand how YouTube views count

2. INTRO
This document won’t focus (too much) on specific technical issues around what will or
won’t count as a view on YouTube. Rules like this can change at any moment - there
are whole teams of staff at Google dedicated to tweaking systems like this, so even if
we could give a specific set of rules down then there is a good chance those rules
would have changed within a week, if not within a day.
Beware of anyone giving hard and fast rules about “X seconds watched counts as a
view”, or “People sent to this url will count” - even if any of these are true at a specific
moment, then as soon as it starts being abused the rules will change very quickly.
Instead, this document will explain what kind of real world views fit into YouTube’s
general view of “what a view is”, and which don’t.

3. A BIT OF BACKGROUND...
Google bought YouTube in 2006 - barely a year after YouTube launched. As a result, you need to “think
Googly” to understand view counts. Google's corporate background is based around PPC advertising
(Adwords etc.), and direct response marketing.
Much of the current video budget is coming from a different perspective - that of Branding, Television
Commercials, Billboards and Flyers. In PPC advertising, there is the well-known concept of “Invalid
Clicks” (popularly known as "Click Fraud", although only a proportion are knowingly fraudulent).
Click Fraud: "when a person ... [clicks / watches] an ad ... without having actual interest in the
target of the ad's link" (wikipedia)
Compare to a traditional television commercial: if a television ad is shown to 300K people, have all of
them had actual interest in the target of the ad? (discuss . . .)

4. SO, WHAT EXACTLY IS A VIDEO VIEW?
From the perspectives above, we have two different ideas of
what the video view count is:
• It reflects the number of people who are interested in the
video.
• The reach of an ad campaign (organic, through bought
spend, or otherwise)
Both of these are valid viewpoints - but they are very different.
Let’s see which aligns with YouTube’s beliefs best:
"Video view counts reflect the YouTube community's
interests and the grassroots popularity of videos"
Video displayed
TV way of
thinking
Video noticed by viewer
Video actively watched by viewer
User engaged with content
YouTube Community Manager - http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/updateon-our-view-counts.html
Google’s advertising background is mainly in direct response
marketing, and measuring the value of each kind of interaction.
The diagram on the right gives an overview of the this value
chain. >>
User engaged with brand
YouTube
way of
thinking

5. DIFFERENT WAYS OF VIEWING A VIDEO
There are many different ways in which a user can view a video, and much of how YouTube thinks about
view count is based around the different use-cases, linked to their underlying principles (explained in the
previous slides).
The next section of this document explains different video viewing scenarios, and the likelihood of the
video being counted as a view on YouTube. The different viewing scenarios include:
•
•
•
•
•
A user watches a video on YouTube.com
A user on a 3rd party blog / website clicks on an embedded YouTube video
A user watches an auto-playing video
A user watches a pre-roll video
A video is played outside of the YouTube player (a technical point)

6. EXAMPLE USER CASES
1) A user on YouTube.com or mobile apps who sees the video description under related videos and decides
to watch the video.
“Has a real user made a conscious decision that they are interested in watching this content now?”
At this point a user has actively chosen to engage with the video - so clearly this should count as a view
(unless the video description was deceptive and didn’t reflect the video correctly).
2) A user on another website, blog, or social network who clicks to view the video on YouTube.
“Has a real user made a conscious decision that they are interested in watching this content now?”
Again, the user has chosen to watch this video and clicked on a link to it - so (assuming the link was
accurate and the user knew they were going to watch a video) this view should be counted.

7. EXAMPLE USER CASES
3) An auto-playing video
“Has a real user made a conscious decision that they are interested in watching this content now?”
If the video has started playing automatically, then there is no sign to YouTube that the viewer actually
chose to watch this video - so you shouldn’t expect the views to count. NB: This behaviour is explicitly
and officially documented - if an embedded video player is started without a user clicking on it to play it
then it will not count.
Technicalities:
• Facebook.com (and some other sites) don’t embed the YouTube player normally - instead they show a
screenshot of the video, and when the user clicks on it the screenshot is replaced by an auto-playing
video.
• It is worth considering Google’s “TrueView” ads here (which are discussed in the next slide), as these
play automatically.

8. EXAMPLE USER CASES
4) Pre-roll video views - where a user has to watch a video before accessing another video, game or service
(like free wifi at an airport).
“Has a real user made a conscious decision that they are interested in watching this content now?”
The answer here is open and dependent on whether the user chooses to watch the content (i.e. not autoplay) and how well these placements are managed - e.g. how many times does each ad get displayed to
an individual user? From our own experience roughly 80% of views from pre-roll style views are counted,
which if controlled can be factored into a campaign model (if your overall aim is focused around YouTube
view count).
Again, there are technicalities here we won’t get into. Interestingly Google sell “TrueView” pre-roll video
ads as part of their YouTube sales package and anecdotally (from analysing campaigns we’ve been
involved with) not all views are counted on YouTube that are delivered via TrueView - which is in line with
the analysis of this document.

9. EXAMPLE USER CASES
5) Playing the YouTube video stream outside of a YouTube player (Technical)
YouTube’s Terms of Service state:
“you agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages
of the Website itself, the YouTube Player, or such other means as YouTube may explicitly designate for
this purpose”
This would normally not be an issue so long as you use the embedded YouTube player. - except:
• Microsoft’s “official” YouTube app for Windows phones does not use the official player (There are
ongoing disputes between Google and YouTube on this at the time of writing) - so unless you are using
the official YouTube <iframe> embed carefully then no windows phone playbacks will count.
• Some iPhone playbacks have similar issues - if you use the (old) <embed> player then some views
won’t be counted in the same way as iOS takes over from YouTube. The <iframe> embed is the
supported method.
• Some older internet connected TVs and media devices do not use supported players, and views may
not always be counted.

10. ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTING FACTORS: CUSTOM PLAYER OVERLAYS
Beyond the “view environment” of a video, another key factor
that YouTube takes into account is the environment of the
YouTube video player itself.
An example of a good custom YouTube player
In particular customised “overlays” on top of the YouTube
player are viewed badly by Google as this firmly breaks their
terms and conditions as overlays can prevent their player
functioning correctly.
Not all custom YouTube gadgets break YouTube’s terms and
conditions, for example Viral Ad Network use a simple but
effective YouTube player that customises content around the
player - rather than over the video itself. (see example on
the right)
Customised area around
the YouTube video, not
over it - therefore not
breaking YouTube’s
T&C’s

11. TOP TIPS
The following are some quick tips to make sure you maximise views on YouTube:
•
•
•
Make sure that everyone involved in a campaign has the same understanding of what you mean by
“view count” - does it mean engaged views, or the number of times the video has shown?
If you want views to be shown on YouTube, ask yourself the question “Has a real user made a
conscious decision that they are interested in watching this content now?”
Judge what the value is if you’re doing a media buy - and don’t trust “get rich quick” style schemes
(e.g. “boost your youtube view count!”) which might not share the same definition of a video view:
• A user who sees a video, decides to watch it, and gets fully engaged should (logically) be about
the same price as a CPC user - from a minimum around £0.10 to several pounds per view
depending on how narrowly targeted the user is.
• A video playback where the user hasn’t engaged at all, is a video display - and should (logically)
be the same price as a video display buy: around the £20 CPM range (i.e. a couple of pennies
per view).

12. KEY REFERENCE MATERIALS
And finally, here’s some links to various YouTube sources for reference:
•
•
•
Read, understand, and follow the YouTube Terms of Service (http://www.youtube.com/static?
gl=GB&template=terms)
Read, understand and follow the YouTube Developer Terms of Service (these apply to
embedded videos) (https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms)
Read, understand, and follow the YouTube Community Guidelines (http://www.youtube.com/t/
community_guidelines)

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