Why do YouTube views freeze at 301?
Numberphile1 HN recommenders · 2012–2025
301 views · explainer · dated · Uploaded 2012-06-22
Numberphile visits YouTube to learn why view counts on new videos used to freeze at 301. It explains that YouTube holds counts while it verifies views aren't from bots or fakes.
Linked whenever the 301 view freeze or view-count validation comes up, as the standard short explanation.
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6 comments from Hacker News
They cache view counts heavily on highly viewed videos for validating views, here's a good video on why it happens (with information from Youtube -- the 301 refers to the first point at which video views stop incrementing in real time): [VIDEO]
There's a good reason for it, and usually is a sign that the video is immensely popular. You can find out why on Youtube it self: [VIDEO]
Or, someone at youtube saw the video and thought it was cool. Like how this video will always have 301 views: [VIDEO]
It may be related to the famous 301 view count where YouTube would stop updating the total pending further verification that the views are legitimate. See: [VIDEO] This behavior was later removed in 2015, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar is happening here.
You probably think of Numberphile explanation of why YouTube videos (used to) stay at 301 views for a while - leading to lots of confusion when the site showed 301 views with 5728 comments and 37592 likes. [VIDEO]
From the GitHub issue it becomes clear that blocking happens by the EasyPrivacy blocklist. The blocked URL youtube.com/api/stats/atr is/can also be used for tracking users, this is why some are arguing that it legitimately on that blocklist. The tracking not malicious. YouTube has a legitimate interest to verify views, e.g. to recommend popular videos to others. If a view counter was increased by just invoking an API, view counts could be manipulated easily. Also see the video [1] from ... 13 years ago ... so it might be slighly outdated. Just slightly. [1] [VIDEO]