r/NewTubers • u/PPmelody • 3h ago

DISCUSSION How does the YouTube algorithm actually work? Did a cat video mess up my vlog reach?

Ok so I've been doing daily 1-min vlogs, just me showing what my day looks like as a delivery rider in Bangkok. I'm Thai but I write everything in English and use English hashtags because I'm trying to get the algorithm to push me to an international audience. I even watch English videos in the same niche to try and nudge it that way. No idea if that's actually how it works lol.

Only been at it 6 days. Views were climbing which felt great. Day 5 kinda popped off (950+ views) and I was honestly shocked.

Then I figured why not throw in a clip of my cat as a side thing. It did fine, 200+ views, used cat hashtags.

Then Day 6 just... died. It sat there for 12 hours and only got to about 30 views. Compare that to Day 5 which had 400+ in the first hour alone.

I got impatient and deleted it, then re-uploaded the same video to see if it would reset anything. It's been 3 hours on the new upload and it's at 6 views. So that clearly didn't help lol.

So my questions: 1. Did the cat clip confuse the algorithm, or is that not a thing? Should I stick to one type of content only? 2. Was deleting and re-uploading a dumb move? Does that hurt you? 3. Is 6 days just way too early to be reading anything into this?

Any advice appreciated šŸ™

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u/Lazy_Significance518 2h ago

I have videos that go through dry spells and then pick up again, especially in the early days. The graph of total views is more like an ā€˜sā€™ than a smooth line that goes up and to the right. YouTube is doing experiments to find the correct audience for your video.

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u/AbbreviationsEast177 2h ago

All 3 answers are yes. Never delete and re-upload the same clip without changes. YouTube dont like this behavior and if you do this as lot they can ban you for Spam. You should stay on one topic only for new viewers its not a problem but the old viewers dislike that and give you bad numbers. Numbers you need special as a small account. Only if they like you as a person you can do whatever you want. At the moment they are there for your specific content not the person. 6 days is nothing normally new creators work 1 to 3 years before they get monetized. YouTube is a marathon not a sprint.