Your YouTube views are about to go up, but there's a catch

A year ago, YouTube made a change to how public views are counted for Shorts content. Soon, it will apply those same rules to all other video formats. This change will also apply to users across the globe.

In a blog post, Google announced it is changing how public views are counted on non-Shorts content. Currently, the platform only counts “engaged views” as view, which means the viewer watched the video for at least 30 seconds. Starting on August 24, 2026, it will start counting views the moment a video begins to play. The company says it is making this change to improve “consistency across the platform” and to eliminate metric confusion for creators.

As a result, viewers and creators will see the number of views on a video pile up faster than before. However, this will have no effect on the creators’ earnings. YouTube says creators’ earnings will still be based on “Engaged Watch Hours” and “Engaged Shorts Views.”

If you were hoping that this change would make it easier for you to join the YouTube Partner Program, then you’re out of luck. YouTube says that it will still require you to capture the same amount of “valid public watch hours” and “valid public Shorts views” as before. However, these terms are being renamed to “qualified watch hours” and “qualified Shorts views,” respectively.