YouTube is doing away with its somewhat iconic 301+ view counter, the static placeholder that’s often associated with new videos in the process of going viral.
The world’s most popular video sharing website explained the use of 301+ on Twitter via the handy infographic seen above. As Mashable correctly points out, YouTube implemented the static placeholder in its early days as a measure to combat scammers attempting to artificially inflate video views.
Once a new video hit the 300 view mark, YouTube would replace the active view counter with the infamous 301+ designation. This bought YouTube some time to validate video views behind the scenes and after a few hours, the true view count would return.
YouTube has apparently made some changes and they’re now confident enough to distinguish automated views from real-life watchers. Moving forward, the view count will continue to climb as usual and any views that are suspect will still be subject to review.
Or more simply put, the 301+ placeholder is going away and hits will be tallied per usual.
The change will help give content creators a better idea of how a video is performing early on. For those that earn a living creating YouTube videos, this will no doubt make marketing a bit easier. For the average viewer, however, it won’t really make much of a difference either way.
https://www.techspot.com/news/61653-youtube-replace-iconic-301-view-counter-real-time.html
