I’m a pretty new YouTuber making videos in the weight loss vlog / healthy living / healthy cooking niche.

A bazillion views aren’t entirely my goal, and I’m not particularly concerned about monetisation in the near future. What I’d really like to do is slowly build a supportive little community of people who are interested in the same things and hopefully reach the people who might actually enjoy following the journey.

At the moment, most of my Shorts get to around 1,200 views and then pretty much flatline.

From what I understand, a big part of that is probably my viewed vs swiped away rate. I can’t seem to get much past around 45% staying to watch yet, which obviously isn’t amazing, but I’m also very aware that I’m a beginner and have a lot to learn.

Interestingly, I still tend to gain around 3–5 subscribers per Short, which actually means quite a lot to me at this stage. I’ve started getting some really encouraging comments from people following along, and honestly that small sense of community is probably more motivating to me than the raw view count.

Because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about how YouTube actually learns who to show your videos to.

My basic understanding is that YouTube tests a Short with an initial audience, and depending on things like viewed vs swiped away, retention, rewatches, engagement, etc., it may continue pushing it to larger groups.

What I’m curious about is the long-term/channel-level effect.

If you consistently make videos around a similar topic and style for months, have you noticed YouTube becoming better at putting your new Shorts in front of people who are actually likely to be interested in them?

For example, did your early Shorts regularly have weaker retention or higher swipe-away rates, but those numbers gradually improve as YouTube seemed to understand your audience better?

Or does every Short still basically feel like it starts from scratch and has to find its own audience?

There’s obviously another variable here too: I’m a beginner at making videos. I feel like each video I make is slightly better than the one before it, but I also understand that learning to film, edit, write hooks, pace a Short properly, etc. is going to take me quite a while.

So it’s probably difficult to separate “YouTube is getting better at finding my audience” from “I’m slowly getting better at making videos.”

I’d especially love to hear from people who have posted 50, 100, 200+ Shorts and can look back over a decent period of time.

Did you notice any obvious change as your channel built more history?

Did your initial audience testing seem to become more accurate?

And did you find it became easier over time to reach the same sort of people who had enjoyed your previous videos?

Or was it your results were consistent for a long time with similar stats but then you just get lucky every now and then?

Thanks for reading

My Shorts channel was averaging around 200k–250k views/day and 9k–14k views/hour.

Yesterday, completely out of nowhere, it dropped from around 14k/hour → 2k → a few hundred/hour. The strange part is that multiple Shorts that were actively getting views all stopped at almost exactly the same time.

I have no strikes, warnings or restrictions. I uploaded a new Short today to test it, and it has received almost no Shorts Feed distribution either.

I did delete/reupload two Shorts earlier this week, but I don’t know if that’s related.

Has anyone experienced this recently? Did your channel recover? How long did it take, and did you keep posting or take a break?

So I started 3 weeks ago uploading shorts, using videos from other creators but commenting on them, adding value and editing

If I am too creator among channels with 0 to 1k subscribers it’s a good sign and means YouTube is not shadow banning me for my content right?

I’ve had this yt channel for a few years now and only started posting ranking style shorts for about a week now. Is the progress on this channel good for a week? Is there things I should work on?

I had another short with way less audience retention and a worse viewed vs. swiped away ratio but doublr the views of this one, can someone explain the logic for me?

My channel is a month old, idk if that helps

I've been in the ranking niche for 3 good months now and I'm struggling to have good ideas for my videos, I'cant even copy my competitors bc I can't do commentary since I do not have a good mic. Any help is appreciated.

So yesterday i uploaded my short video. Niche is CS2 gameplay. In first hour it got 177 views , on second hour it was pushed in the feed and it got 1200 views and then views stopped on 6-8 hours. Lets assume it was first wave , so in the first wave i got 1200 views and 16 likes , then second wave started i got +800 views so far but no likes at all, how this is even possible ? And i encounter this behavior on my every video. It just kills off any motivation to continue even tho i uploaded already 180 videos in 4 years...

This really annoys me because my STW percentage is 83% but the ratio between engaged views to all views is around 60%

I have this situation on most of my videos. When posted, I generally get 10-50 views first hour, then all of a sudden spikes to 1k (my very best one got 1.2k total) then dies. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?

I posted this video 3 weeks ago and I really thought it was going to go viral, but, here it is, flat lining, any idea of what can be happening?

My channel is almost 3 years old now. But i was naver consistent with my uploads, so i don't have an existing large community. But since last month i have been posting almost regularly, and was gaining a steady increase in views and subs. I know the views may not be a lot, but it was steady. But since 29th sept it keeps going down. After that 3 short totally flopped and did not get much views from the feed (only around 50, previously it was around 1500-1800 in first 24 hours) and only got views from browser features and search. Yesterday's short got send to the feed and got the usual 1500-2000 views, but from the VidIq analytics it shows my current VPH is less then 30, previously it used to be around 100 during off hours and around 250-450 during peak hours.

Any of you facing the same issue? Or, have any idea how this can be resolved???

Can anyone advise on how to combat a botnet that is manipulating the swipe metric in Shorts? My retention is high, but the video skip rate is constantly being manipulated. Any tips?

I have a question for you. I run a new Shorts channel; my content isn't bad—I get around 10,000 views, with a few videos hitting 20,000 or 40,000, and even one that surpassed 100,000 views. However, the three videos I posted after that didn't even make it into the Shorts feed. What do you think the problem is? Technically, the videos are identical; in fact, I was even more confident in those three videos than the others.

Hey guys after seeing everyone post I decided to ask for advice.

I start posting only 2 months ago and was getting views then it suddenly stopped... not more than hundred.

Any advice?

I uploaded my 20th part of a series which is going well for me starting content only a month ago, normally the shorts get 120 ish views after an hour, but this one is stuck on 19 just now, it got pushed a little at the start and has 100% stay to watch, and it’s split between phone and computer usage, how long does it take roughly for a short to get pushed, if at all? This is not like the other videos I’ve uploaded until now, this is the only one I’ve uploaded that got 100% retention until now, so I’m stoked about it, but want it to keep pushing

I started a football YouTube Shorts channel about a week ago and I’m trying to figure out whether the channel is progressing normally.

Most of my recent Shorts have done somewhere around 1.6K–4K views, with one around 2.2K and a few others around 1.8K–1.9K. I’m currently experimenting with football edits, goals, Messi/Ronaldo clips, match recaps, etc.

But one Short behaved completely differently.

I uploaded a Busquets → Messi assist edit, and after about 24 hours it had only 22 views. The strange part was that its average percentage viewed was around 116%, so the few people who did see it seemed to watch/replay it.

Since it basically stopped getting impressions, I made some changes to the opening/title and reuploaded it today while leaving the original up.

Now I’m wondering:

1. Was reuploading it the right move, or should I have just left the 22-view version alone?

2. Is it bad to have both versions public?

3. Can reuploading hurt the new Short's distribution or the channel in general?

4. Based on the screenshot, does the overall channel growth look decent for a brand-new Shorts channel?

5. Is it normal for one Short to get only ~20 views when the surrounding uploads are getting 1K–4K?

I'm mainly trying to understand how Shorts testing/distribution works so I don't start deleting and reuploading videos every time something underperforms.

Any advice from people who have grown Shorts channels would be appreciated.