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please not that this is a case study. (it will be a long read)
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so starting off,
on a general sense shadowbans do not exist as discussed by several algorithm experts.
it can always be fixed by an improvement in content.
however, you must also remember that on a fundamental level, all social media companies could possibly have hidden shadowban defense systems in place to punish channels and also suppress extreme cases like spam, controversial topics, platform abuse and the spread of misinformation etc.
random/sudden Drop in views can be caused by a Multitude of other factors, as i have observed and studied over the last few years.
but it is not always necessarily a shadowban.
there could even be other factors causing it.
here, you can find a list of all possible reasons that could cause this and how you can fix it:
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1. the views threshold theory:
for small channels, for example in the case of 1k subs fresh monetized channels, the reason why recommendations suddenly crash or the channel suddenly dies, is mostly due to the views threshold theory, which is based on the channel size/authority.
the views threshold theory is understood by observations across several channels.
the views threshold theory holds that the suggestion rates, as in,
the daily or monthly views of a channel is also proportional to the channel size(note that there are exceptions such as using massive promotion methods or making exceptional content which the algorithm can identify and allow you to break out of this threshold, so this threshold applies on a general scale to most average channels).
for example small channels with 1k subs can have lower monthly view limits at peak, compared to a channel with 100k subs or more.
it's sort of yt backend system that has hard-coded limits set for channels(just like the pscore system that was exposed).
another example is, let's say your monthly hidden views threshold is 1M views.
no matter how hard you grind or how many videos you spam, somehow youtube will spread those 1M views across 1 month, such that you will not exceed that threshold or barely exceed it, until the algorithm resets for the next month, for which you will have a fresh threshold of 1M views again.
sometimes you can also get those views within 20 days rather than a month, but then, don't be surprised if after that , you are barely getting anymore views or none at all, for the remainder of 10 days left of that month, since the threshold ceiling has been hit.
it's sort of yt adjusting view threshold limits to give everyone a fair chance.(this can also effect earnings).
but also understand that as your channel progresses your view threshold limits can also go up.
view threshold limits can also have variations in terms of going either up or down, that are effected by algorithm cycles(explained in point 14).
just because you hit 5M views on one month, does not mean that on the next month,
you will necessarily gain more than 5M views and have a constant ever increasing snowball effect that never decreases.
sadly that's not how things work with yt.
it can always vary by spikes and drops.
to understand why these views threshold limits exist, consider the following factors:
1. global population is limited.
2. youtube users are limited.
3. global advertiser budgets are finite and limited(not infinite)
4. global payouts Will be limited as a result of limited advertiser budgets(so the money has to be distributed fairly)
5. number of Creators and channels are also increasing which will force distribution and can cause drops in the global payouts/cpms,
compared to when there were lesser people on the platform.
THERFORE,
global recommendations will be limited (the amount of views that algorithm gives out globally).
and so, the advertiser budgets should also be limited as the consequence of this.
since there are limits in global advertiser budgets , dont expect to get stable views or all the views unless you are performing exceptionally well with good content and promotion methods, because the youtube algorithm needs to give all the creators a fair chance.
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2. doing same/similar content forever or not innovating.
content improvement:
some channels can experience a sudden drop in views after trying to milk similar content for too long.
but based on tests, some of these channels also experience an increase in views again after changing/innovating or improving content.
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3. the sandbox:
the sandbox is a hidden feature to protect the platform from spam,hacks or abuse.
the sandbox applies to newly made channels or the old dead and inactive channels.
when the channels are inside this sandbox, the channel's, reach/recommendations, or features like appearing on search will be limited and there is a window of like 1 week to 1 month, before you start appearing in search and recommendations.
with a channel that is already active and getting suggested and running well, the sandbox can still apply, which is triggered by other factors, such as
change of ip, device, or channel Ownership to a new mail, etc.
in all such cases the channel will be sandboxed for a timeframe of 1 week to a month, until google gains trust on the channel with the new device/ip or mail, before releasing it from the sandbox.
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4. sudden change in content:
sudden change in content that is completely unrelated can cause a drop in views.
in this case you will need to grind by posting more videos until the algorithm finds new audience for your new content.
(but this can be fixed faster by sending promotion in the form of playlist views, endscreens or community posts from An already active channel to the channel trying to transition to new content).
when you gain large amounts of views from other active channels promoting you, you will now have that channel's audience as a base to build your channel and get recommended to a wider audience in the future.
youtube will now start recommending the fresh content you post, to these new audiences who came via that promotion.
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5. long breaks.
taking long breaks from posting can lead to algorithm punishing your channel, if you are a frequent poster. but remember that there are exceptions to this case aswell.
it depends on the video posting frequency/schedule of your channel, which the algorithm has identified, and it can also depend on content quality levels and pscore.
its possible that some channels can post videos, once or twice per year and still get a lot of views compared to other channels who spam daily.
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6. deleting a large amount of videos/streams (which contain a large portion of your views/watchtime):
if you suddenly delete a large amount of videos on your channel, that potentially contains a big chunk of your views and watchtime, this can cause a sudden death in the channel's youtube recommendations.
when a video is deleted, the views and watchtime get deleted along with it.
the more views and watchtime your channel stacks, the more authority it has and this effects your recommendation levels.
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7. bad/useless content:
this case is self explanatory. with such content you won't go viral anyway.
suppose you buy a viral channel and post such content and if it does not explode, then don't assume that the viral channel got shadowbanned or something.
it could possibly mean that your content is just Bad.
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8. posting controversial content can cause drop in views.
self explanatory.
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9. spam:
any content or method that is used to spam the platform, that will negatively effect the user experience or harm the platform in any way, can cause a drop in views.
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11. views throttling/crash in views caused by owning several channels on same ip/device trying to spam similar stuff:
running too many channels on the same device/ip/adsense, can cause a sudden drop in views/shadowban or the distribution of views across these channels, rather than the multliplication of views. this can be considered sort of like a shadowban or hidden views threshold limitation, that protects the platform from money spammers who try to scale with low effort.
many people get greedy and try to scale to big levels by spamming mindless duplicate/similar content across multiple channels, to increase their revenue.
this is not as easy as it sounds, it is much harder than you think to scale on yt and it requires pro methods, knowledge and strategies to execute in stealth mode and succeed.
this used to work in the past, but with recent updates its not possible anymore.
they will flag you for spam if you have too many channels on same ip/device/adsense.
you need to have a whitelisted adsense to be able to do this from the same ip without getting throttled, or run in stealth mode with different adsense accounts,virtual machines and ip addresses.
remember that this problem mostly effects monetized channels more than non monetized ones.
as far as my experience goes non monetized channels have way higher limits and no throttling of views even on the same ip,
since yt does not care about these channels, as they generally cannot be spammed for easy ad money, except in cases like, the copyright claiming method, which is also useless now since they have cracked down on it.
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12. copyright strikes can cause crash in views.
strikes like these can cause a crash in views/reach and can last for several months.
approximately 3 months.
consider it a form of hidden punishment for channels trying to abuse the system.
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13. content or niche flagged by yt after too much saturation or spam, can cause drop in views
youtube can manually flag certain spam niches or trends and limit their reach after it has been saturated a lot.
so if you are in such a niche and experience a drop in views, consider this factor to be one of the possible ones , rather than a shadowban.
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14. maxing out global recommendations for any available audience per niche, can lead to a drop in views, after which you might need to either swap the channel (which has reached its maxed out potential) , in order to restart a fresh recommendation cycle, or make drastic improvements to your channel probably, so that the algorithm can restart the recommendations cycle from scratch, to the same available audience within that niche.
niche size refers to amount of available audience per niche.
the more the audience, the larger the niche size.
the lesser the audience, the smaller the niche size.
examples of niches with the largest available audiences:
1. general entertainment
2. gaming
3. music
4. kids content
5. funny videos
6. viral content
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15. algorithm cycles can also give you the illusion of a shadowban or Drop in views, when it is infact not a shadowban but rather something normal experienced by all youtube channels:
expect to see algorithm cycles on any channel.
every channel will have spikes and drops in views across its entire lifetime.
there can be instances where channels suddenly gains a spike in views and will maintain that major blow up for a while followed by a drop in views that will also last for a while.
but what you need to understand here is the difference between shadowbans and algorithm cycles.
when it is the "algorithm cycles" phenomena, expect the peak of views, for example, of 90%, to last for a while, followed by a sudden drop of views to 40% or 20% from 90%.
in such cases, some people tend to panic and correlate it to a shadowban, whereas it is nothing more than the channel just experiencing algorithm cycles.
on the other hand when it is an actual shadowban, your views can drop by 90% to 100% , at which point you can confirm that something is definitely wrong with the channel.
for example imagine gaining 100k views per day and the next day your suggestions randomly crash to 1k views per day or absolute zero suggestions.
we have seen this happen to different channels.
in such cases it could be a shadowban.
several factors could affect it as described in all the other points in this post.
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16. death of a trend or loss in audience interest:
if you are doing a niche that is based on trends or something that has a current spike in interest and months later if the audience loses interest in that topic, the algorithm can identify that based on data collected and will search for new content to recommend to this audience , and will stop recommending the old content that they got bored of, since most people would not be clicking on it anymore due to a loss in interest.
that could be identified as loss in interest and the death of that trend.
so as a consequence of the algorithm identifying this, expect your recommendations to crash by a huge margin.
so incase you noticed that your recommendations have crashed, dont forget to consider that , if you are doing a topic that is based on trends(as mentioned here), because this is not a shadowban but rather death of that trend or a loss in audience interest.
so the way to revive a dead channel that is based on trends, is to target new trends and keep on posting content based on those trends.
this way your channel can keep riding these so called "trend waves" , and it will never die.
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. I have bought over 100 old channels trying my luck and I wasted a lot of cash buying views too. Please What am I doing wrong and why am I hardly suggested. I got suggested only once ever haha