YouTube has shared a video designed to demystify the algorithm that determines which Shorts get recommended, driving discovery and potential virality. Unlike TikTok and Instagram, YouTube didn’t reveal its top secrets by sharing specific details. In the Q&A presentation, Shorts Product Lead Todd Sherman answered frequently asked questions and emphasized the differences in how viewers consume content on Shorts versus YouTube. While the former involves swiping through hundreds of clips, flagship users are exposed to 10 or 20 videos and must proactively click or tap to play.

Sherman noted that “not every flip in Shorts is counted as a view,” distinguishing YouTube from “some other platforms where viewing the first frame is counted,” while “TikTok counts views as soon as a video starts to play,” according to TechCrunch.

With YouTube Shorts, the idea is that a “view” conveys the user’s intent to actively watch, providing what Sherman calls a “meaningful threshold” by which creators can gauge public interest.

YouTube, a division of Google, won’t reveal the engagement required to pass the “view threshold.” In fact, that metric changes periodically, to prevent creators and their fans from gaming the system. Sherman refused to recommend a specific length that would help videos get seen other than to restate the limit of 60-seconds or less.

“This differs from rival TikTok, which has been experimenting with letting creators record longer videos after first popularizing the short-form format,” TechCrunch points out.

Instead of dissecting length, Sherman emphasized story, and said that while hashtags can be useful, creators shouldn’t bother customizing thumbnails, since they disappear after the platform initializes. “Once you’re swiping through, you won’t see the other videos’ thumbnails,” TechCrunch explained. Nor is time of day a factor in when to publish, unless the Short relates to breaking news.

Sherman addressed the perplexing matter of why Shorts will occasionally gain traction only to see their counts stall, known as “getting stuck.”

“There are parts of the algorithm that try and find people, find creators an audience,” Sherman said in the YouTube interview. “And sometimes those algorithms will go and effectively find like a seed audience, find a set of people that may enjoy your video. Depending on how that goes, it may get a lot more traffic or it may taper off.”

“Shorts is the fastest-growing content type on YouTube, and is now driving over 50 billion daily views in the app,” reports Social Media Today.

Sherman said that while more frequent posting will not garner algorithmic favor, posting many low quality clips can get you dinged. Likewise, deleting and re-uploading to try to freshen up leftovers can also result in downgrades and potentially get a clip labeled as spam.

Related:
YouTube Is Testing a New Search Feature Powered by Humming, Mashable, 8/24/23
YouTube Shorts Will Soon Have Tappable Stickers on Mobile, PhoneArena, 8/18/23
YouTube Is Disabling Links on Shorts to Cut Down on Spam, TechCrunch, 8/10/23
YouTube Shorts Adds Creator Tools Including Collab and Q&A, ETCentric, 8/4/23
YouTube Is Adding a Slew of New TikTok-Like Features to Shorts, The Verge, 8/1/23