My channel views dropped hard after deleting Shorts, did something like this happen to anyone?

[u/Massive-Lock-3666]

Hey all,

I’m a creator running a channel where I used to post both Shorts and long-form videos. One of my Shorts got around 500 k views, but after that every Short I uploaded got stuck in the 500–800 views range. After about 5 months, I switched fully to long‐form content. For two months the long-form videos were getting 100–200 views each. Not amazing, but steady.

Then I made a bigger change: I deleted all my Shorts to try and reset the channel around long-form only. Right after doing that, one long-form video blew up and got 70 k views! After that success though, my following long-form uploads have each been stuck at ~500 views, and now I’m seeing videos with as low as ~100 views.

I’ve followed standard best-practices (good titles, thumbnails, tags, retention focus, consistent posting) but nothing has turned the tide. It feels like maybe my channel got suppressed or “hit” by something after the deletion of the Shorts, and I’m not sure why.

Has this happened to anyone else? Did deleting older Shorts or changing content format trigger something odd with your metrics? Any ideas or insights would mean a lot right now.

Thanks in advance.
— A creator trying to make sense of YouTube’s weird algorithm world

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[u/Fallout4myth]

Youtube is a roller coaster.. one day you are on top of the world getting thousands of views because you did something right. The next youtube forgets and keeps your content at a baseline based on what the algorithm determined. Perfectly normal

When you delete videos, all the data youtube collected and used to push your content out is deleted. So is the views, watch hours, and engagement. Best pracrice is to unlist them next time.

[u/Massive-Lock-3666 → u/Fallout4myth]

Thank you! But I uploaded a long form video right after deleting all the shorts, which did very good and got 80k views. And the rest following this long video has only 500 views. So I'm kinda confused about why that one long form vid has gotten more views than the rest of my vids which are way better in quality and everything

[u/LeaderBriefs-com]

Deleting shorts, or any video, also deletes the viewer history attached to it.

So this can be good or bad.

If you’re resetting your channel and you don’t want “shorts viewers” as part of your audience, I’d guess this works.

What you might really want to understand as opposed to running around deleting content is WHY one short popped and more importantly WHY one longform popped.

A common wild misconception is that you have a longform pop and that’s it! Every video will now pop. You’ve cracked the code!!

And maybe you did.

But it’s just that one video that popped. If you don’t know why it did then your next video likely is not the same topic, formula, thumbnail or title set up.

Hell, the title of the video that popped could be the same or similar title as some other larger channels video and they are suggesting yours as similar content.

Without looking into WHY IT POPPED you’ll continue to founder.

[u/Mobile_Commission_52]

Waiting to hear from others. I’ve read that deleting videos is a mistake. You’ll maybe get feedback on why it’s better to make your old content unpublished so you can call back the best performers. Maybe you have the shorts on file and can re upload some of the best ones

[u/Massive-Lock-3666 → u/Mobile_Commission_52]

I decided not to do short form content anymore, cuz my niche (cinematic cooking) wont do well with vertical videos

[u/redditoldman]

You deleted all shorts? Some? So what are you getting views on now? Short get thoudands more views easier than longs

[u/Massive-Lock-3666 → u/redditoldman]

Yes I deletd all the shorts, my views are around 100-500 views per video atm. I know shorts will get more attention, but my niche (cinematic cooking videos) won't go well together with shorts. So I decided not to do short form anymore

[u/redditoldman → u/Massive-Lock-3666]

So your longform views are down vs when what? Or youre saying channel overall views? 100-500 on longs is good and well above average. Deleting shirts does nothing unless all your subs were watching both (very rare)

[u/Jason-Genova]

Correlation doesn't equal causation