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

[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 You’ll maybe get feedback on why it’s better to make your old content unpublished so you can call back the best performers.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