YouTube Views For Your Favorite Artists Are About To See A Major Change

YouTube's 24-hour view counts often say a lot about an artist and their music. The higher they are, the more popular or viral their latest release it. The company is now changing exactly how these views are calculated by only counting organic views.

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What exactly does this mean? It means that "advertising views" will no longer count towards the number of views in 24-hour tallies. These advertising views are generated when the video plays as an ad before another YouTube video.

From now on, a video's views will be based on organic plays. These organic views include "direct links to the video, search results, external sites that embed the video and YouTube features like the homepage, watch next and Trending."

Some artists and their labels were previously boosting views using these growth hacks. Earlier this year it caused controversy after Indian rapper Badshah surpassed BTS for the most views of a video in 24 hours. YouTube declined to credit the artist with setting the record because many of the views were driven by paid ads.

"Over the last few years, fans, artists, and their teams have touted the number of views a video receives on YouTube within the first 24 hours as the definitive representation of its instant cultural impact," said the company in a blog post. "Our goal is to ensure YouTube remains a place where all artists are accurately recognized and celebrated for achieving success and milestones."

But don't worry BTS fans, the current 24-hour view record-holders will not be affected and in the future. It will be the fans that continue to influence the biggest hits on YouTube.