YouTube Question Subscriber truth or rumour?

[Kari B]

I belong to a couple of YouTube groups and I have noticed recently that a lot of people are saying if someone subscribes to you in under 30 seconds/ one minute it won't count - as YouTube thinks they are bots. This is why in the sub4sub groups they have very strict rules on watching at least two minutes of their video before subscribing.

I've never heard of this before, I guess it kind of makes sense, but I've subbed to someone straight away and I'm still subbed to them so I'm now wondering if this is true or just a rumour being spread to increase watch time amongst sub4subers.

 

[vinc8nt]

Same question here. If i just want to sub the channel without opening any video or i opt to watch it later, will my act to sub is counted or not?

 

[cok sunbro]

I belong to a couple of YouTube groups and I have noticed recently that a lot of people are saying if someone subscribes to you in under 30 seconds/ one minute it won't count - as YouTube thinks they are bots. This is why in the sub4sub groups they have very strict rules on watching at least two minutes of their video before subscribing.

I've never heard of this before, I guess it kind of makes sense, but I've subbed to someone straight away and I'm still subbed to them so I'm now wondering if this is true or just a rumour being spread to increase watch time amongst sub4subers.

I think youtube Sub is always counted. Not to forget youtube takes some time to update the current Subscriber count. so yeah it always counts the subscriber. If you see drop in subscriber, then mostly your sub4sub has unsubscribed or the account itself is fake and has got banned.

The reason people ask you to watch for longer is mostly for view purpose. Youtube might not count a view if the video is closed too soon.
I hope it clears your doubt.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

To my knowledge YouTube doesn't reveeal their specific approach with bot issues (though bots are becoming a far more prevalent issues these days than they have been the last few years).

While the majority of the time rumors like that are nothing more than rumors (and Ibelieve this to be a rumor) there is some truth to the fact that YouTube does eliminate bot accounts when they can. I don't think that they have a 'under 30 seconds' rule per say, but there is definitely a correlation between subscriptions gained via livestreams and those gained without ever having seen your content (and whom subsequently never watch your content). This is single-handedly the reason YouTube took away the ability to tap on someone's iceon in a livestream and go directly to their channel. A poor decision on their part IMO, but an obvious attempt at deterring sub4sub activity.

So while I do not believe this to be the case I would also not be surprised if YouTube enacted some backdoor policies like a '30 second rule' in order to combat s4s.

 

[Kari B]

Thank you both. I was wondering if there was any truth to the rumour. I don't sub4sub, but I have followed people to their new channel and subbed straight away without seeing much of the video.

Bots are definitely on the rise, in the last few months I've seen a huge rise in comments on my videos within the first few minutes of publishing yet it will have no views. They are all from people who have their own channels but don't seem like they would be interested in my content.

 

[Ater]

I don't believe there are any truth in it. It's pretty common for people with a large following elsewhere, like Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, TickTok and celebrities like actors, musicians etc to launch a YouTube channel and direct all their fans there getting large amounts of subs asap when their fans get to the channel.

I do believe that YouTube have other ways to identify and fight bots and other scam stuff on the site and they regulary delete bot and scam accounts from the site.

 

[Toyteller]

I do not ever sub for sub, whatΓÇÖs the point in that. I want my subs to enjoy my channel and the majority of people wanting subs are gamers and they ainΓÇÖt going to love my doll videos

 

[InspirationalbyMarie]

Loads of people do believe this "rumour" and I do find some new subscribers placed in "likely spam" and when I click approve to the ones I want the subscriber count increases by that number. So it's hard to say personally that there is no inkling of truth somewhere.
By the way, I have also seen comments by my usual subscribers here also (by accident?) so it is not exactly foolproof either way.

 

[BraveStar]

The most logical conclusion to this would be that YouTube would rather get rid of the bot than simply dismiss the subscription from the channel. It would simply be easier to analyze an account's behavior when it comes to subbing to determine if it might be a bot and if so then simply ban it automatically removing the subscriptions from a channel.

This seems more like an attempt by people to get longer views than it is to get bots to seem less like a bot because that would require refining the bot programming to ensure it watches long enough not to seem like a bot but from what I have seen I doubt people using bots actually care about that. Definitely more likely a play to simply get longer view times if this is at all true.

 

[zanderlex]

I don't think it's true because there's lots of people who sub to channels where they don't even watch a video at all and it still counts. Look at big youtube channels who make 2nd, 3rd, 4th channels. They promote their other channels and tons of people sub before they even upload their first video. Or when celebrities first make a channel (Will Smith, etc) and people sub before they upload.

 

[Beanie Draws]

I belong to a couple of YouTube groups and I have noticed recently that a lot of people are saying if someone subscribes to you in under 30 seconds/ one minute it won't count - as YouTube thinks they are bots. This is why in the sub4sub groups they have very strict rules on watching at least two minutes of their video before subscribing.

I've never heard of this before, I guess it kind of makes sense, but I've subbed to someone straight away and I'm still subbed to them so I'm now wondering if this is true or just a rumour being spread to increase watch time amongst sub4subers.

Interesting rumour. I doubt it's 100% correct. I assume there would be SOME elements of truth, youtube do terminate bot accounts, they do remove invalid views and such, but I don't think there's a specific number of seconds.

I did used to hear back in the day that videos under 10 seconds don't count as views/watch time which is why super short videos are a very bad idea, but there was no official confirmation.

That said, a few years ago I was definitely taken off some subscriptions, possibly due to inactivity and not engaging with channels. It was a "known" bug that many complained about, but seemed to be fixed in 2018/2019 but the 30 seconds or it won't count sounds like a humor of people trying to figure out HOW YouTube determins a bot account from a real user account.

 

[TubeBuddy]

I belong to a couple of YouTube groups and I have noticed recently that a lot of people are saying if someone subscribes to you in under 30 seconds/ one minute it won't count - as YouTube thinks they are bots. This is why in the sub4sub groups they have very strict rules on watching at least two minutes of their video before subscribing.

I've never heard of this before, I guess it kind of makes sense, but I've subbed to someone straight away and I'm still subbed to them so I'm now wondering if this is true or just a rumour being spread to increase watch time amongst sub4subers.

Rumor YouTube bases bot accounts off other factors. Sorry to burst the bubble :/

 

[Kari B]

Thank you. I'm guessing there are a lot of YT rumours - this week I've seen a lot of people panicking that they are upping monetisation requirements to 5000 subscribers and 10000 watch hours, but I've heard this rumour a lot over the past two years with different numbers being thrown about. I can understand why they had to put the current requirements in place, but I doubt it would make sense to raise it again.

 

[Maryprecious]

Thank you. I'm guessing there are a lot of YT rumours - this week I've seen a lot of people panicking that they are upping monetisation requirements to 5000 subscribers and 10000 watch hours, but I've heard this rumour a lot over the past two years with different numbers being thrown about. I can understand why they had to put the current requirements in place, but I doubt it would make sense to raise it again.

So many news that I decided not to listen again.

 

[InspirationalbyMarie]

Hmmm, who knows with youtube.? Since we can't really do anything about these rumours or truth I just ignore them