As of late, YouTube has been making both creators and viewers alike very happy. With the removal of Google+ from YouTube, and now with the removal of the 301 view threshold, a lot of changes are being made, but what does this mean for creators?
The 301 View Count Explained
The 301 view count that’s displayed on recently uploaded videos was YouTube’s way of authenticating the sudden flood of views coming to a video. The views would stop at 301 (thus 301+) and over the next couple hours all the views would be authenticated. This was to help prevent creators from faking the views on their video.
After a few hours, the “301+ views” would be updated to display more real-time views. Though this didn’t mean anything to the viewer, it would be quite irritating to the creator as he/she wouldn’t be able to see up-to-date views on their video.
What Are They Doing Now?
So, if YouTube used “301+” to verify the authenticity of views, what are they doing to stop botted views now? Well, it’s all explained in a concise tweet from YTCreators.
Simply said, YouTube is now confident enough in their bot-prevention system that they’re going to just let through some viewers. Keep in mind that they still will be checking some views, just not all of them.
This is amazing for content creators! It means that we’ll finally be able to have a constant and accurate view count. No more waiting for 301+ to be cleared! Though, we’re going to have to say farewell to the “301+ club” (you’ll know what I’m talking about if you frequently watch newly released YouTube videos).
Conclusion
It’ll be interesting to watch things over the next couple of months and see what ingenious ways that people will come up with to possibly try to cheat the system. Depending upon just how good this new system is, I’m sure you’ll be able to bot your views (at least for the next couple months as there will be some kinks to work out).
Just like with my Blackhat YouTube SEO method, I’m sure there will be ways to take this new viewing system to your own advantage.