Views - HOWEVER, what the YouTube algorithm really focuses on is click-through rate (CTR) aka the percentage of people who saw your thumbnail and clicked through & average watch percentage (AVP) aka the proportion of the video viewers watched. In an idealistic world, you'd have 100%, but that isn't really realistic so you should maximize those metrics - your video can have a million views but if people are dipping in 5 seconds of a 5-minute video, YouTube will stop promoting it as it's not keeping people on the platform/interesting enough to viewers
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