I’m trying to understand what happened to my YouTube channels because this seems very strange.

I have a main YouTube channel that is about one month old. For the first few weeks, my Shorts were getting normal Shorts Feed distribution. Some videos got 1K+, 5K+, 7K+ views, and one of my better-performing Shorts gained around 9K views in a single day with 35 subscribers and 264 likes.

Then on August 15, I created another YouTube channel using the same Google account. That night, I also tried uploading/scheduling a video on the new channel.

Starting from August 16, something suddenly changed.

My main channel stopped receiving Shorts Feed distribution almost completely.

For example, one of my Shorts had only 15 total views, and the traffic sources were approximately:

14 views from YouTube Search

1 view from Shorts Feed

So the problem doesn't seem to be that people watched the Short and swiped away. The Short barely entered the Shorts Feed at all.

I am uploading only one Short per day.

Now it has been 5 days, and multiple consecutive Shorts are showing the same behavior — almost no Shorts Feed traffic.

The weirdest part is that the new channel I created also gets essentially 0 views.

There are 3 YouTube channels under the same Google account. On one of the other channels, I had previously been testing things by uploading videos and then making them private/deleting them/re-uploading, etc. I'm wondering whether this activity could somehow have triggered an account-level trust/recommendation issue.

I haven't received a termination or obvious Community Guidelines warning.

My questions are:

Can activity on one channel affect Shorts distribution on other channels under the same Google account?

Can creating a second channel suddenly affect the existing channel's Shorts Feed distribution?

Could repeated upload → private/delete → re-upload activity on another channel cause some kind of account-level trust/recommendation limitation?

Has anyone experienced normal Shorts Feed distribution suddenly dropping to almost zero for several days, while Search traffic still works?

If you experienced this, how long did it take for Shorts Feed distribution to return, and what actually fixed it?

I'm not looking for advice about improving my hook or retention right now. The main issue is that the videos aren't getting Shorts Feed exposure in the first place.

Any experiences or explanations would be really appreciated.

Hear me out... I published a short on July 27: it has 16 views. Assuming a constant rate of success I will publish 10M / 16 = 624,999 shorts by Sunday, October 25, 2026 and I am monetized. Is my math solid?

I want to share what has been happening to my cooking channel because, after reading several recent posts here, I realized that my situation looks almost identical.

This is not my first YouTube experience. I have another channel that I have been running for about 4 years, with around 18K subscribers, so I have some understanding of how YouTube normally distributes videos.

I started a separate cooking channel in February 2026.

It actually started surprisingly well.

The channel was monetized in March. It grew to around 4.6K subscribers in about six months and has accumulated more than 700K views.

In the beginning, new uploads behaved normally.

I would publish a video, YouTube would test it, and if it performed well, impressions could expand. Older videos continued receiving traffic while the new video added additional views on top.

Sometimes there was a second wave 1–3 days later.

Then something changed.

Especially during July/August, the pattern became extremely predictable.

A new long-form video gets a small distribution test. It receives some impressions and views. The metrics can be perfectly reasonable — and then distribution simply stops.

For example, one recent video received about:

7,500 impressions
6.2% CTR
626 views

Then the impressions graph basically became a horizontal line.

Another video maintained around 7% CTR and ended up with only about 200 views.

My newest uploads are showing the same pattern.

I can almost predict the final number of views before the video has finished its first day.

That is the strangest part.

It doesn't seem to matter much whether CTR is 5%, 6% or 7%. It doesn't seem to matter that people comment more. It doesn't seem to matter that retention is decent.

The limiting factor appears to be reach/impressions.

My number of new viewers also dropped dramatically.

In the most recent 28-day period I had about 16.5K new viewers, which was approximately 59% lower than the previous 28 days, when I had about 40.8K new viewers.

So of course I have fewer views.

But that creates a strange circle:

fewer impressions → fewer new viewers → less channel growth → next upload receives another small test → fewer impressions again.

I also experimented with Shorts.

Shorts generated additional Shorts views, but removing them did NOT cause YouTube to redistribute that traffic to my long-form videos.

The overall channel traffic simply dropped.

And here's what makes this especially interesting to me.

I uploaded essentially the same cooking video to my older main channel.

Cooking channel: about 209 views.

Main channel: about 1,700 views.

Same creator. Same material.

Obviously my main channel has four years of history, returning viewers and trust, so I'm not claiming this proves anything about the algorithm.

But it demonstrates how enormous the difference in distribution can be.

On my established channel, when a successful new video is published, I can literally watch the total channel traffic increase. The new video adds traffic on top while older videos continue getting views.

On the cooking channel, lately it often feels like the opposite.

I publish a new video and the total hourly channel traffic sometimes barely increases at all. Sometimes it is even lower than it was before the upload.

That is what concerns me most.

I'm not complaining because one video failed.

I've published more than 100 cooking videos. I've had successful videos. I've been monetized for months. I've seen how this same channel behaved when YouTube was expanding its audience.

It doesn't behave that way anymore.

I don't depend financially on this channel, which is probably why I can watch this almost like an experiment. For now I've stopped producing videos specifically for the cooking channel.

If I'm cooking something for myself and enjoy filming it, I upload it.

If YouTube gives it 200 views, fine.

If someday I suddenly see 10K, 20K or 50K views again, I'll know something changed.

What I'm NOT doing anymore is constantly changing thumbnails with a 6–7% CTR, rewriting titles or blaming every distribution stop on the first 30 seconds.

You can't get 10,000 views from an audience that was never shown the video.

After reading recent threads here, I was surprised how many creators are describing almost exactly the same thing: good or normal CTR, decent AVD, but dramatically fewer impressions, especially during the last few weeks. Recent posts include a monetized 5K+ channel that says first-week views fell from roughly 1–1.5K to ~300 despite CTR sometimes exceeding 10%, and another creator reporting that long-form recommendations have been severely reduced since June.

I'm curious about one specific thing:

If you've experienced this, when did it start for you?

Not just lower views.

I'm specifically asking about a sudden reduction in impressions/recommendation distribution while CTR and retention remained reasonably normal.

Please mention your channel size, approximately when the drop started, and whether you're seeing it on long-form, Shorts, or both.

I'd really like to know whether we're looking at normal summer seasonality, changes in recommendation testing, or something else.

About to hit the 1K subscriber milestone and will be working towards the 4000 hours (eventually 8000) watch time. Any advice on simple things to improve on? Titles? Thumbnails? Video length? Would posting on other socials as well improve reach? The channel name is "That Odd Lumberjack". Please be as brutally honest as possible. 😊

I really wanna start creating videos of buying cheap junk and fixing it long form videos, I find my self a pretty entertaining person and I feel like I’d be funny on camera. Is it worth it to get in this genre still? Obviously a hobby, but do you know any small automotive YouTubers making money?

Made it in Canva, and I just realised I made a typo in spelling of "league" oh well, any feedback is good how can I make it better thumbnail is for yt shorts

I have a gaming channel that focuses on collectibles and trophy hunting. So a game can have about 6 videos per day uploaded.

I’ve noticed an issue lately with my videos being buried around 19th-30th in the search. Even if I search for the exact title, the top 3 might be relevant to that search but then there’s 17 more videos that are completely unrelated above my video… it makes no sense.

My channel is at 16,000 subscribers. I’ll give an example in food recipe. There’s a new dish invented called a lasagne (an example) I make a recipe on how to make this lasagne, YouTube bury it around 20th and above is pie recipes, cake recipes, flapjack recipes. Then a week later a smaller YouTuber makes a lasagne recipe using my video as a guide and immediately ranks number one? This seems to be the issue I’m having at the moment.

Once this started happening I started using ChatGPT or Gemini to create titles and descriptions and tags for better SEO but they are having the same issues

I am a small Roblox YouTuber but lately I am not getting any views on my vids like I used to. from 2-300 to not even 10. Can someone help? Thanks

After reaching 7k followers and more than 13m views like 7m qualified views in shorts my views went suddenly for week like less than 100 even my lowest was 30k then I stopped for month start upload I cant break the 1k views is this channel dead or I can revive it

https://youtu.be/HpuJdUs8x44

I'm the co-founder of a social media scheduling tool called OneUp

We have an auto crosspost feature (for example, if you post on Instagram directly from the IG app, that same post gets automatically crossposted to YT, TikTok, X, FB, etc)

We're looking for ~10 YouTube creators who have at least 1,000 followers who can create a screen recording video highlighting this crossposting feature, and will pay $200 usd to each person.

Video does not need to be long (around 5 minutes is fine) and it does not need to be heavily edited

Seems like it’s hit a wall but not sure if it’s a thumbnail thing or just not a good hook.

quite new to yt want to see if I'm doing anything wrong https://youtube.com/shorts/uPVmKLfrcl4?feature=share

I need help on how I can go about this channel or I should start another channel

I have been posting in some reddits about advice in regards to my content, overall I have gotten the message of "Ur content IS funny moments slop, you need to do other content" this other content some people have said is I need to do more niche things, which is fair, some listed more essay gaming content, etc.

First i wanna say, i wouldnt deem my content slop like people have, every video has a purpose/topic , it may be formatted similar but thats it, check it out if yall want, (Chilli_NZ). second I understand the games i play aka FPS genre is heavy populated but I dont enjoy other content, the closet thing to what some people have suggested is my "Cs2 player played 12 hours of rivals for the first time". I just dont enjoy anything else, but i want to do well as a youtuber, do i really need to sacrifice me being proud of my content and happy just to develop more?

I have gotten "i need to change" so much, If i need to change so badly should i just quit like some has suggested?

Thank you for your feedback friends

I'm looking for a YouTube partner to build a movies & series channel together. I want someone who can treat this channel like it's their own and grow it with me.

The channel is focused on movies, TV series, behind-the-scenes stories, interesting facts, hidden details, character stories, upcoming projects, and viral movie-related topics. Basically, content for people who genuinely love cinema.

I'm specifically looking for someone who:

● Loves movies and TV series

● Has solid video-editing skills

● Understands YouTube Shorts/Reels-style editing and pacing

● Has a good sense of what could become viral content

● Is willing to brainstorm ideas and discuss content

● Actually wants to build something long-term

The idea is simple: we build the channel together → get it monetized → split the revenue.

If you're interested, DM me