Are dislikes counted as interaction?

[Courtney Candice]

I never heard of dislikes being counted as interaction until I’ve seen so many people on this forum talking about it, but someone told me that’s not true. I’ve seen really big channels with more dislikes than likes and still manage to go trending and gain subscribers. Does anyone know if it’s really true that dislikes are counted as interaction?

 

[Dewmonic Abyss]

Yeah, dislikes count as engagement. They don't effect the YouTube algorithm negatively. Remember Rebecca Black? In 2011, she was one of the most viewed channels on YouTube and her most popular video was the most disliked video. Likes and dislikes both count as engagement, but mainly cater to the viewer. If a viewer sees a video with 0 likes and 90 dislikes, they'll probably skip it (thus hurting the video, because low retention.)

 

[Courtney Candice]

Yeah, dislikes count as engagement. They don't effect the YouTube algorithm negatively. Remember Rebecca Black? In 2011, she was one of the most viewed channels on YouTube and her most popular video was the most disliked video. Likes and dislikes both count as engagement, but mainly cater to the viewer. If a viewer sees a video with 0 likes and 90 dislikes, they'll probably skip it (thus hurting the video, because low retention.)

I remember her and that song it’s friday

 

[Dewmonic Abyss]

I remember her and that song it’s friday

Yup! That's the one! I lowkey think YouTube acknowledged there are videos on the platform that people love to hate (Like Friday or Everyday Bro), and even though they get a lot of dislikes, they still make a lot of money.

 

[Courtney Candice]

Yup! That's the one! I lowkey think YouTube acknowledged there are videos on the platform that people love to hate (Like Friday or Everyday Bro), and even though they get a lot of dislikes, they still make a lot of money.

Yeah plus there’s always those internet trolls that go around dislikeing videos without even watching them.

 

[EVO]

I hear the same question and repeat the same answer.
Who knows if its true or not.
But my biggest video with over 10m views has around a 50/50 split likes/dislikes.
So it doesnt seem to harm.

My first ever video (that went on to be 'viral'ish' (at least for the channel size)) was me sat at a table handling some automotive project.
It was horrible. It was way too long and I was boring and I made mistakes along the way. I used an Iphone over my shoulder showing my hands. I didnt know how to edit then..
That video has around a 80% dislike ratio and around 80% of the comments are negative.
But the video brought views and engagement and pushed those people onto other 'improved' videos..

 

[The NotARubicon!]

Nobody knows for sure if a like/dislike counts for/against a channel because Youtube hasn't told us.. anyone that says "YES" or "NO" is just guessing/hoping/dreaming.

But here are some things to bear in mind:

Youtube would NEVER do anything that would allow you or your competitor to "game" the system - so it makes sense that a thumbsup/down has no effect on a video's performance. Otherwise we'd all make 100 fake accounts and be going around "thumbs-down bombing" each other's videos.

A thumbs down/up IS an interaction so it would make sense that either an UP or DOWN could, potentially, maybe be a positive thing.

TLDR; nobody knows for sure and anyone that says they do know is either lying or ignorant.

 

[FireShock]

I count it in that area. Like the other said, a video with a huge amount of dislikes someone will tend not to look at, or they may look at the video for a seconds lowering the audience retention of that video not enjoying it. But the simple answer is yes I would.

 

[Courtney Candice]

Nobody knows for sure if a like/dislike counts for/against a channel because Youtube hasn't told us.. anyone that says "YES" or "NO" is just guessing/hoping/dreaming.

But here are some things to bear in mind:

Youtube would NEVER do anything that would allow you or your competitor to "game" the system - so it makes sense that a thumbsup/down has no effect on a video's performance. Otherwise we'd all make 100 fake accounts and be going around "thumbs-down bombing" each other's videos.

A thumbs down/up IS an interaction so it would make sense that either an UP or DOWN could, potentially, maybe be a positive thing.

TLDR; nobody knows for sure and anyone that says they do know is either lying or ignorant.

Yeah that’s true, there is a lot of internet troll that tend to go around disliking YouTubers videos even when they haven’t watched it hoping it will ruin their career.

 

[SevenFortyOne]

I've experienced this as well and echo Evo's thoughts here.

I'll also add that there are tons of reasons why someone may like or dislike a certain video. As others have said some people will dislike a video simply out of spite. Others may dislike due to poor editing or camera angles but find the content is fine. And once in a while it might even be an accident...I've had multiple people contact me and apologize for this.

I'll speculate that YouTube knows this and uses the like/dislike metrics to help suggest content for users similar to the way Pandora does. In other words it doesn't affect your video or channel that much but may affect whether or not the user that interacted with your video is shown similar content by the suggestion algorithms.

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