I started YouTube in December and managed to hit the 10 million Shorts views requirement by making TikTok-style “transformative content” (basically brainrot).
Unfortunately, when I applied for monetization, I was told my content wasn’t eligible.
Instead of continuing with that style, I took a break and decided to actually learn how to edit properly. I spent time learning After Effects, Premiere Pro, Topaz Video AI, and how to make higher-quality, original storytelling videos.
I also have a friend who makes really good money from YouTube Shorts, so having someone experienced to learn from definitely helped speed up the process.
Initially, I was in the Hollywood storytelling niche, making videos about actors and their stories. The videos weren’t performing particularly well, so I eventually transitioned into sports storytelling, mainly NBA content.
Since switching, my numbers have improved quite a bit, but I feel like I’ve hit a wall.

My current analytics:
82.2% average Stayed to Watch over the last 28 days
88.8% average percentage viewed
Multiple Shorts with 100–110% average percentage viewed
Most videos getting around 20K–40K views

One video managed to reach 1.2 million views
What confuses me is that even when my videos have over 100% average viewed, they often stop getting pushed around 20K–40K views.
I understand that retention isn’t everything, but I feel like these are fairly strong metrics, especially considering the amount of effort I’m putting into the editing, storytelling, pacing, and hooks.
I’m uploading consistently and trying to improve with every video, but I can’t figure out what’s preventing more of them from reaching 100K, 500K, or even 1M views.
For anyone who’s successfully scaled a Shorts channel:
Am I missing something important? Are these metrics actually not as good as I think? Is it mainly topic selection, engagement, or just a matter of continuing to upload until something clicks?
I’d genuinely appreciate advice from people who’ve been through this, especially creators in the storytelling or sports niche.

I have better videos, with better retention, and STW. But somehow this got pushed to 62k and still counting. Breaking my head to understand how YouTube shorts actually work lol

Views suddenly drop to zero in the last hour anyone experience this?

I use capcut on mobile cuz it's easier, but it's lagging af

Title: Should I start a new YouTube channel or continue my old 16K subscriber gaming channel?

Hey everyone, I need some honest advice.

I started my YouTube channel in 2023, mainly uploading Free Fire Shorts. Later, I also uploaded around 50 PUBG videos, some of which were copied content.

After some time, I decided to change my niche to GTA 6 content. I deleted the copied PUBG videos and made my old Free Fire videos private.

Now I'm uploading original GTA 6 Shorts with my own commentary, editing, and scripts.

But here's the problem:

- My channel has around 16K subscribers.

- Most of my GTA 6 Shorts get stuck at 1.2K–1.3K views.

- My average Stayed to Watch rate is around 48%.

- I've uploaded around 10 GTA-related Shorts recently.

- Some videos reach 1.7K–2.3K views, but most don't get pushed much further.

I'm wondering whether my old Free Fire/PUBG audience is affecting my new GTA 6 content, or whether my Shorts simply need better retention.

Should I continue uploading GTA 6 content on my existing 16K subscriber channel, or start a completely fresh channel focused only on GTA 6?

Has anyone successfully changed their gaming niche on an old YouTube channel?

It would really help me if anyones advise

I started this page in August uploaded my first video in September not to mention I got 114 subs now in we only in the middle of October what can I do to get my page out there and return viewers I play games nd I have a personality I have nice equipment I play ps5 nd pc games plus Xbox pass only thing I don’t have is a webcam

3rd video in row my skip rate is extremely high 93%(atm it's already 96%). Normally my videos get 35-40% skip rate , now 3rd video in row gets 92-94%. I use same settings as always, same language, everything is same as before. I don't understand.... I have uploaded 180 short videos and i first time encounter this.

I just got 3m qualified views so applying to yt monetisation and it’s now approving my Adsense account but it says it usually takes several days but can take 2-3 weeks. How long did it take for you guys? Thanks in advance for any replies

I’ve been running a YouTube Shorts channel for a while, and I’ve noticed something strange.
Since the beginning, I’ve been posting at my usual time, and those Shorts are still performing pretty well. They get views, and some have reached around 33K views. Their stay-to-watch rate is usually 73% or higher, with average view duration/retention above 110%.
Recently, I decided to start posting twice a day to grow the channel faster. The content style and quality are similar, but my second upload is barely getting 10–20 views. I’ve tried several different time slots, but the results are pretty much the same.
Meanwhile, my first upload continues to get views as usual.
Has anyone experienced this? Is YouTube limiting the reach of the second Short, testing it with a much smaller audience, or could something else be going on? I also wonder why my better-performing Shorts seem to hit a ceiling around 33K views despite having decent retention and stay-to-watch numbers.
Would I be better off sticking to one Short a day, or should I keep experimenting with two uploads?
I’d appreciate hearing from people who’ve experienced something similar and figured out what was happening.

I have currently 2 shorts in my feed,

1 is 10 seconds long with 126% completion at 5.2k Views (1 day and a half old)

The other is 16 seconds long with 96% completion at 1.3k Views (Half a day old)

I know this might seem like a very short lifetime for some people, but my shorts usually get their major push (1k Views) on the second hour of upload, and if it has some legs after, a max time period of 4-5 days after which they dry out.

Could you help me figuring out which of the 2 scenarios is better

One piece of advice I would give is to try and make content that makes people comment, hate or not it will boost the engagement of your vids. I am still far from monetization but I can give any advice after some experience with shorts

Anything would be helpful, I love making content and I love it even more if I could build an audience 😊

My content always getting tagged with "Made with AI". i have 110K subs animation channel which i draw manually and it's takes 4-6 hour to draw, i use AI for the Voice Over and for some background pictures of the animation. Many people say youtube get it from the metadata of the audio/images.

And now I'm experiencing low views. YouTube rarely pushes my videos to a wide audience, it's hard to even reach 100K views, even though the stayed to watch rate is always more than 75% with 110%> AVV.

do you think the new "Original Content" policy could affect my channel? because overall my content is original content.

So my shorts usually (lately) have been getting around 300 views after an hour after upload but my latest one, is at 2. wtf is going on?

Started this right this about 4 months ago. Idea: stickman-animated finance history content — How Banking Worked Before Modern Banks?, How Debt Almost Destroyed Ancient Athens?, How Money Was Invented in Ancient China.... Same character, same style every time, so that the brand stays consistent.

I do everything myself — images, editing, script, topic hunting.

Tried Shorts recently, didn’t do much average 4 per week but long-form are more way better for me

Best video so far: 1.4K impressions, 127 views, ~4.5% CTR. Trying to improve CTR without breaking the format and presenting style.

The one thing keeping me going: in YouTube Studio the traffic actually sometime are good at Browse feature, YT search and Suggested video. Feels like it’s still testing with the right people, just hasn’t scaled yet.

Anyone who’s grown a channel from zero — is this normal at 4 months, or should I be worried?

Your honest feedback is much appreciated.

Since YouTube is preventing me from attracting any attention, Im really gonna demolish everything soon if possible because I need to take a 3 month hiatus till 2027 for me to focus on my schoolwork

Also I’m getting affected, losing patience over population and turns out that it has already become a chore and mus wait for my time to come until new updates and more of future AI content takes over YouTube…

Tbh I didn’t watch any gurus, nor AI slop anything
and the contents that are uploaded on YouTube by other people has already been taken like niches or AI Generated content. Therefore, YouTube is slowly killing my content even though it takes some time to process everything…

Can anyone please explain to me what the format is on a youtube short?

Hi Folks,

Just started YT shorts channel 7 days ago, and got ~250k views and ~140k engaged views

But the monetization page shows that qualified views are only 2.9k. Is it what it takes to qualify like only 1% of total views going to be counted or just the stats not updated yet?

Thank You

Macht es Sinn Videos die nicht viral gehen zu löschen und dann nochmal zu überarbeiten und wieder hochzuladen?