YouTube begins 'auditing' video view number to curb artificially inflated counts

The Google-owned video site said that there were concerns about some viewers using tools like 'redirects' or 'buying' views to boost their count and mislead people about the popularity of a particular video.

According to the BBC, YouTube would now 'periodically' validate the views on videos and remove the fraudulent ones from the total.

Google in its statement said that some bad actors are not only trying to game the system by artificially inflating view counts but also undermining one of YouTube's most important and unique qualities.

The company maintained that the new approach would not affect more than a minuscule fraction of videos on YouTube.

Meanwhile, analysts have pointed out the approach to clamp down on fraudulent views was also aimed at assuring advertising firms that their campaigns on the portal were reaching a genuine audience.

Asia-Pac head of LEWIS Pulse, a firm specialising in digital marketing, Sanjana Chappalli, said that YouTube is just one of the many options on the social media that companies looking to advertise have, and therefore, it needs to maintain trust among advertisers for continued revenue growth.