No no, it was from the new changes at the start of the year. They made a new rule saying that deleted videos, unlisted, and private video views would be deleted from the total view count. I had a TON of videos that were deleted or put on unlisted and eventually scrapped..
Please Note:
I want to apologise ahead, before you'll start read this thread. I would add related screenshots and links to this thread but technically I can't since I'm still a noob around the forums so please be patience, read and I hope that you will still understand what I try to cover here.
HERE WE GO:
Whenever I visit the forums, I see lots of confusion and that's not a bad thing, we are all learning and the good thing is that we can help and teach each other new things to improve!
I'm not sure how many of you use the Google Analytics, and NO... I'm not talking about the "Analytics" inside your YouTube channel... I still don't find it friendly or a comfortable tool and it's update once per 24 hours... it's not the best tool to use yet, but it's fine... (but not perfect).
WHY DO YOU NEED ANALYTICS?
Do you want to learn your audience? where are they from in the world? how old are they? are they boys or girls? from what website or link they came from? how did they get to your video? and more!
That's what Google Analytics are for!
Once you'll understand that your audience is mostly X... and like to watch a specific video mostly and so on... you will finally know what you should CREATE NEXT!
For Example: I found out that most of my audience were Teen Males, it was about: 82% male 18% female. That means: most of my content is not appeal to girls, great! I learned something new about my channel!
But wait! I wanted to fix that, I wanted to gain MORE (as extra) female subscribers/fans to my channel, without lose any of my male fans... But how?
I'm thinking as Analytics as FACTS! or homework (which I always hated BTW) but in other words: If analytics wants to teach me something, I must listen to the facts in order to solve or improve my channel!
So I've created A NEW VIDEO that will still remain in my style but I aimed to the girls this time! (Don't get me wrong, I'm not a sale out, I'm very careful when it comes to my content!).
Guess what? after 2 videos like that my current state is about: 62% male and 32% female, so most of my NEW subscribers are females! and that's a great balance compare to what I had...
That was just an example, you can learn much more about your channel, content, what people like most, what not, what video of yours making the most money (than make more like these!) and more and more...
CHANNELS? BLOGS? WEBSITES?
In this example I'm talking about YouTube channels, but just to let you know that you can use Analytics for your personal website, blog, specific YouTube channels and more... all in one friendly panel! (It takes only one set up for every website).
BEST FEATURE :
I'm actually in love with this feature,once you'll get inside your Analytics. especially on the moment you've uploaded a new video! there is a feature called: REAL TIME !
it's still on beta but it works like a charm (at least for me)... it is so much fun to see numbers of people on real time, where they are from, on what link they clicked to watch my video, how long they stay in my channel, and so on.. and so on... in REAL TIME!
GREAT NEWS:
About a week ago, Google announced on a new upgrade to the Analytics, this time it is MUCH MORE powerful and detailed per user! (per viewer in our case, since we're talking about YouTube videos).
they call it: UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS ! The new algorithm is much more smart and helpful than what I've described, I'm still learning how to use it and just setup it on my YouTube channels.
Since I can't put a link on the forums (Yeah.. I'm a noob... laugh as much as you want) just search for: " Set Up Universal Analytics " and start read, and do it!!!
I'm pretty sure that if you will use this amazing tool, you will be able to LEARN and IMPROVE your channel based on the analytics!
SUGGESTION:
If you still didn't use Analytics before, make sure that you setup the NEW version which is the UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS, so you'll be most update with much more features in the future (they're still working on it and develop it, I love google haha).
If you already use the normal Analytics, you can just set up EXTRA for your current channel with the new UNIVERSAL features.
HOW TO SETUP YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL?
1 - Set Up your specific Analytic profile / ID for your YouTube channel,
2 - After you've set up your Analytics and produced the code,
3 - Log in your YouTube channel > SETTINGS > ADVANCED
4 - Scroll down a bit and you will see: Google Analytics account ID
5 - Copy Past to there > SAVE
THAT'S IT!
* You may see a different option instead of "Advanced" I'm not sure since I'm a premium YouTube partner, maybe you'll see the same maybe it's: "Branding Options" or something like that... I have no idea what regular YouTube channel options are these days, sorry about that.
Also I would recommend to Bookmark the specific Analytics page for your YouTube Channel so you can enter to it with 1 click, in my case I bookmarked the REAL-TIME and that's what I see as first thing from my bookmarks
CONCLUSION:
I know it may sound scary, but if you're looking at YouTube as something more series than just a hobby... I highly recommend you to use it NOW!
GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY!
* Sorry about my bad English.
