YouTube Shorts views now count every start or replay, with engagedViews added
What changed
Starting 31 March 2025, YouTube Shorts views count each start or replay with no minimum watch time. This affects channels.statistics.viewCount and videos.statistics.viewCount in the Data API. The Analytics API adds an engagedViews metric that reflects the previous method. Videos that are not Shorts are unchanged.
What it means
Shorts view numbers rise because there is no minimum watch time, so old and new figures are not comparable.
Who is affected
Marketers who report on Shorts performance and developers of analytics tools that read YouTube view counts.
What to do by 31 Mar 2025
Use the new engagedViews metric if you need the previous counting method, and note the change date in reports. Targeted Queries were updated by 30 April 2025 and bulk reports by 30 June 2025.
Primary sources
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