There are plenty of businesses out there that promise to boost your viewership and increase your subscribers. They can offer you hundreds of thousands of views in exchange for money. The big numbers definitely look tempting, but don’t be fooled.
Not only can fake views adversely affect your reach, but it can harm your YouTube channel’s growth in the long run.
Mentioned below are 5 foolproof ways to spot a business selling fake views.
1. Check your source of traffic on YouTube analytics
The source of traffic tab in YouTube analytics lists all the websites your views are coming from. You should personally visit these websites and explore how these sites are promoting your video content. Bear in mind that people should view your videos of their own free will and have the option to skip your video or not watch it at all. Additionally, they should not be coerced with an incentive to pay and watch a video.
Here’s a snippet of the YouTube Engagement Policy:
“We consider engagement to be legitimate when a human user’s primary intent is to interact with content free of coercion or deception”.
Your source of traffic will give a detailed insight into whether you’re getting views from legitimate sources or from sources which deceive users into watching your content.
2. Companies that sell engagement as a separate package
Be cautious of businesses that sell engagement as a separate package. Though you may see a massive shift in engagement, sometimes even exceeding 10K, be wary that you may be getting fake engagement. Fake engagement means that the users who engaged with your content are usually bots or fake accounts who get paid to interact with your videos. They will only engage with your content on a one-time-basis and will remain disengaged in your subscriber list as passive users who will never engage with your content in future. These passive users will decrease your reach and you may risk suffering from stagnant engagement in the long run. If a business promotes your videos to the right audience, you will see a marked hike in overall engagement rates in the form of increased subscribes, likes or comments or shares.
3. Fake companies provide a high number of views at a cheap cost
Promoting video views is a tedious and long process. So when companies claim to boost your Youtube view count in thousands, for very low cost per view, it’s definitely too good to be true. Many times, these businesses deploy fishy strategies that could get you in trouble.
4. Keen an eye for ambiguous comments on your video’s comment section
If people are posting short, irrelevant or generic comments, they are usually sent from an automation bot. These bots repeatedly use keywords like “great”, “love”, “excellent”. For example, “Great video. Love it” is generic when compared to “I really enjoyed your video. Especially the part where you talk about SEO is really helpful,” which sounds more personal and genuine.
5. Investigate the good old fashioned way
Check out the company’s presence on Google. If the company is a scam, they might lack information about their employees and founders. A solid company values its team members and usually highlights them in its “about” or “meet the team” section on the website.
If you want your videos to really be effective, your content must be relevant to the audience you’re targeting. When viewers genuinely like your content, they will interact with it and YouTube will push your videos out to more people who are likely to watch your videos.
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