YouTube has changed the way its video view counter works by abandoning the old 301+ maximum.
Up to now the counter has worked on what YouTube calls its 301+ protocol. Basically, the process works as follows:
Someone would upload a video to their YouTube page. Then people would start to view that video which is stored on duplicate servers around the world. The views themselves would however be recorded centrally for the sake of verifying them as real.
Once a video reaches just over 300 views, the view counter for that page remains frozen while YouTube checks the views for possible spam. This is where the View counter’s 301+ name comes from.
After a few hours the view count is unfrozen and updated with all validated views so that it can continue growing as new visitors enjoy the streaming content.
However under the new “post 301+” system people watch videos that are stored across many servers all over the world. Views that YouTube verifies as coming from real people are then counted and updated in real time as they’re recorded while other more suspicious views get a prolonged review and are later added to the consistently running view tracker.
In essence, view counting for all YouTube videos has now moved much closer to being a smooth real-time algorithm and we can all say goodbye to several hours of 301+ freeze.
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