Does anyone know how this could happen? # of views

[ChuckM]

I noticed that some content producers, say, average about 10k or 20 k or whatever # of views for their videos, but out of nowhere, one of their videos could fetch 1 Mn or even 2!

Here is an example I just spotted: 5Mn views for this Festool clip, even though most Festool videos score a lot less than 10k. 5 million? Anyone know how that happened?

I know that some sellers "brush" their product reviews (they send a product to someone unknown to them, and use the account created under that someone's info. to leave positive reviews), but unless a content producer has access to some kind of program that can "click" views a million times!, it's humanly impossible to jack up the views like that manually.

 

[Bob D.]

I don't know if this would work. But if you sent a link in a html formatted email to everyone who had signed up with your site, and the email was crafted such that the YT video in the email started playing immediately, would YT count that as a 'view' even if the recipient doesn't continue to watch.

I don't know, just thinking it's possible and I have received emails (NOT from Festool though) where the video started playing immediately.

 

[mino]

I don't know if this would work. But if you sent a link in a html formatted email to everyone who had signed up with your site, and the email was crafted such that the YT video in the email started playing immediately, would YT count that as a 'view' even if the recipient doesn't continue to watch.

I don't know, just thinking it's possible and I have received emails (NOT from Festool though) where the video started playing immediately.

More likely it was embedded on their site ... or somethings. Most likely not intentional - the "views" on tube have no value to Festool as their videos are not monetized.

 

[Bob D.]

Possibly, but its the request from the client machine that starts the video
rolling isn't it?

Yes but they do have value to anyone who comes across the video and says;
"WOW! Look how many people have watched this, it must be really good."

So they send a link to three of their friends and before you know it another
million views are clocked.

 

[ChuckM]

This is just my conspiracy theory ( [big grin]). I think the host site that the video was loaded to jacked up the number of views randomly or based on some kind of formula to create the same effect that Bob described: generating traffic to the video site.

One of the Youtubers actually left a comment asking his viewers specifically what really "ticks" in his latest video when it hit almost 2 million views while the one before recorded just 81k (similar contents). He had no clue whatsoever that he had such a huge following.

For one thing, I don't think that 5 million Festool owners/users would've been interested in that 16 seconds clip I referred to in my last post while ignoring the other Festool videos of more substance.

 

[squall_line]

I believe that Festool video is embedded on a number of their retail partners' websites.  Even if it's not set to auto-play, it's short enough for a curious visitor to click on it and not feel like they've wasted any significant portion of their life.

Once you embed something like that on Facebook or another social media, it increases views significantly as well.