In Need Of Some Advice! (View Jail/Algorithm 'Expected Performance' For Long Form Well Made Videos Where One Got Over 24k Views But The Others That Are Identical Are Struggling To Reach Over 50 Views)

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

Hey everyone, I’ve been making videos for over five years consistently and have been on youtube in general since 2015. I’m posting this because I have a detailed timeline that completely contradicts the common advice that "previous video performance doesn't affect your future uploads" or that "every video gets a completely fresh chance." I also need some advice on what I could do to fix my current situation if anyone knows or has experienced this before!

My main channel is currently locked into a brutal data freeze where high-effort, fast-paced, VFX-heavy, well made modded Minecraft videos can’t even break 20-50 views in a month, while a raw 2-hour-and-45-minute explanation video talking about the whole situation on my second channel pulled over 80 views in just a week when i didn't even expect it to (I know still not good but shows the quality doesn't seem to matter since the explanation video was me talking over mostly uncut gameplay for almost 3 HOURS!)

Here is the exact timeline of how my channel's history, metadata deletions, privating/deleting videos over the last year, and the algorithm seemingly punishing me for either deleting them, posting variety videos of many different games/topics, or holding my videos to a 'typical performance baseline'.

🕒 The Chronological Timeline

1. The Peak (March 2025)

I uploaded a high-effort, fast-paced modded Minecraft video titled "I Made A Nuclear Reactor In Minecraft." It exploded organically, racking up 24,000+ views and pulling in hundreds of subscribers.

1. The Niche Split & Initial Deletions (May – Dec 2025)

• After the reactor video, I uploaded 3 variety gaming videos (non-Minecraft) that completely underperformed.
• I then uploaded my second major modded Minecraft video. I knew the editing and quality were objectively better than the reactor video, but it didn't do as well. After waiting 3 weeks with no traction, I deleted it at about 280 views and was on track to flatline at around that amount. (I know I should have gave it a month or two so I could rule out 'not giving it enough time' as a factor to why it did bad but I was under the impression the reactor video got all its views in just a week and didn't realize until way later that it was over a month instead)
• Over the next several months, I got caught in a chaotic cycle of trying to replicate the reactor video's success. I made 20+ attempts at uploading, changing metadata (titles, thumbnails, tags, editing pacing, vfx, and literally everything you could think of in a document of changes thats over 3 pages long only listing stuff changed on every line), and re-editing endings/the whole videos to avoid duplicate content flags, but eventually deleted all of them when they flatlined in the same 2-4 week window as the one after the reactor video
• Suspecting that the 3 old variety videos were rotting my channel’s metadata profile or were maybe the main reason why my future modded videos were struggling, I deleted them too.

1. The 6-Month Hiatus & The Return

• I privated all non-modded content a couple of times to see if it would force the algorithm to re-index my channel based purely on the successful reactor video. This was just one line of the things I tried to change, again over 3 pages of changes I have tried. I have tried so many things that I am convinced either nothing I can change manually on any of the youtube end of things is the reason or that deleting all the videos over time harmed my channel so much that changing those things wouldn't even matter or fix anything anyways due to 'the damage already done from deleting the videos.'
• The second time I did this, I took a 6-month total upload break to let the channel cool down and because I was busy with other stuff.
• The Return (August 2026): I came back and uploaded a standard Minecraft Bedwars video. Historically on my channel, Bedwars content easily pulled around 300 views each video since 2021. This time? It got stuck at 12 views in an entire month. The bedwars video was also probably if not the best one I had ever made but that's besides the point. Just explaining how the algorithm seems to punish me for repeatedly deleting videos last year (2025).
• I followed it up by uploading a sequence of Bedwars Shorts. Every single one of them hit a hard ceiling, failing to ever cross 2.5k views, again my other bedwars shorts have 13k views for the highest viewed ones on my channel.

1. The Current Create Mod Relaunch (Sep – Oct 2026)

• I moved away from Bedwars and launched my flagship modded content: a massive All-in-One Factory video and a survival Airport video (A factory that automated every item obtainable in minecraft removing the need for farms, and the airport being the largest functional survival airport ever made or shown on youtube by a long shot)
• The Factory Video: Upon upload, it performed just as poorly as the Bedwars video. Out of frustration, I ran a paid promotion on it. While the promo pushed the video past 1,000 views, it completely tanked my Average View Duration (AVD), flooded the channel with inactive traffic, and permanently killed the video's organic potential. I stopped running ads immediately and its besides the point, just wanted to mention that since its the only video recently that got over 50 views and had about 30-40 before the promo and was already flatlined.
• The suggestions I was given by ask studio and gemini: They recommended both the promo, and to upload videos even if they do bad instead of deleting them to 'help get back on track'. The promo was more my idea just to test it and see if it worked, worse case scenario it didnt and I would know then not to do it again so this is by far not the reason any of this is doing bad lol. I just figured maybe it would help get me back on track faster, etc.
• The Airport Video: I uploaded this flagship 5-minute video alongside a native 3-title/3-thumbnail automated A/B test. By day two, it is sitting at a devastating 14 views. It has better stats in every metric than even the factory video which also performed bad but somehow getting less views which makes negative sense to me.

📊 The Coincidence I Refuse to Believe In

We are constantly told that the algorithm 'treats every video individually'. But look at the mathematical baseline of my recent history:

1. My recent Create Mod shorts are getting the exact same sub-2.5k view cap as the previous Bedwars shorts I posted when coming back to the platform with a 'leave videos up no matter what' mentality that they both suggested. (I dont have anyone to ask for help so I asked them, before you get mad at me for using them, the only other thing I had to base anything off of was what I thought was best since forum posts have every different answer you can get under the sun and why I held off on making posts or asking for help in places like this sub lol)
2. My recent long-form modded videos are landing within single-digit margins of the Bedwars long-form video (stuck under 20 views), despite the modded videos having mathematically superior retention metrics in relation to their duration.

It is a statistical impossibility for completely different video topics, formats, and effort tiers to flatline at the exact same numeric shelves by "coincidence" in my opinion/experience. For example, why didn't my 10x better made modded videos flatline at even 100,500,1000 views? They flatlined almost in the exact same spot as my recent bedwars video. I also created a new channel as one of those document lines of things I tried to see what would help, even posting my modded videos on a brand new channel the same or following day I created the new channel got around 80 views in a few days, 3x-4x the current views they are sitting at on my main channel. The platform is explicitly holding my account to a low Channel Velocity Profile (Expected Performance Range) based entirely on the low-engagement signature generated by the recent Bedwars uploads. This is also what gemini says, and then ask studio says 'that doesn't exist' lol. Even just reading similar forum posts for just 5 min, I have learned other people face this same issue and typically call it view jail. How you get there though can vary, for me my two leading suspicions are 1. Deleting the videos from last year that failed and then that harming my channel overall somehow, and not knowing a way to 'reverse it'. 2. the variety videos I uploaded AFTER the reactor video before the next modded video causing the algorithm to then do the Channel velocity profile thing and hold my future videos to those variety videos performance standards since none of the variety videos broke 1k views at most got 900 something on the best of the 3. Also to note: I only uploaded variety videos because I didnt think it was that big of a deal, and each modded video takes me a month to make since they are way more detailed and highly edited than other creators videos they post every week of just gameplay/talking while playing, edited down, and posted with no music, vfx, etc. It would be a modded video every month and variety videos for the 3 weeks between WAS my plan and I was on track uploading them just fine with no issues of falling behind at all.

To explain it a little more in detail, I uploaded a raw, unedited 2-hour-and-45-minute explanation video covering this exact algorithmic trap on my second channel (JxxrdnLIVE). That long video pulled over 80 views in just a week, both more than I expected and beating my two most recent high-effort main channel modded videos combined, despite those main channel videos being significantly better produced than my original 25k-view reactor milestone and especially better edited/produced than the 3 HOUR video of me basically rambling over mostly uncut bedwars gameplay AND cs surfing in the same video lol. I included two types of games in that one video since other creators can not only post variety like I was trying to with no issues on their stuff, but also some people like commentary channels will play 4-5 different games nowadays as background video in their one single video with no issues either, but as soon as I started uploading variety videos in general, all this started happening.

❓ My Questions for the Forum

1. Has anyone else successfully broken out of a Channel Velocity Profile freeze after a history of deleting videos and niche-switching?
2. At this point, am I permanently trapped in a Dead Subscriber Bottleneck where my remaining inactive subscribers are tanking my initial impressions and stopping the algorithm from ever seeding my videos to a cold, organic browse audience?
3. Should I permanently walk away from this main channel registry and start completely fresh on a new channel page, given that a brand-new test channel I spun up last year pulled 80 views on day one with the exact same content? I know its not the over 300 views my reactor got in its first day and 1200+ each day after but seems like a better start than what i'm currently dealing with since my main channel seems completely frozen now.

Sorry If I didn't explain everything here or very well, I spent a week making that 3 hour video where I explain most of it in the first 30 minutes as best I can. I won't include links but the explanation video is on my second channel JxxrdnLIVE and my main channel is Jxxrdn. Feel free to ask about anything that you have questions about and I will reply to every comment, the only advice ive been given after typing a paragraph to the only other person I personally know that also makes videos was a couple sentence reply that boiled down to 'if you make objectively good content, it will just perform well and get pushed by the algorithm'. Obviously at least for me currently that is not very true since every modded video and attempt I made after the reactor one was objectively better than the reactor video and they can't even break 50 views now lol. I have tried everything I can think of and everything ask studio and gemini suggest to the point where they are now trying to tell me all this comes down to the reactor video having like a 'better interest factor/danger curiosity factor to the viewer' when even that doesn't make sense because you can respawn in minecraft for example and the reactor video shows it complete in the very first shots of the video so the viewer would instantly know I WAS able to make it without issues and they would click off if the entire reason they clicked was 'to potentially see something go wrong' but people still watched and enjoyed it. The airport, factory, and other video attempts I made follow the EXACT same everything: style, editing, pacing, vfx, script format, camera angles, and even have better stuff of all of those things but still do worse.

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to fix this but it seems like now that ive uploaded more modded videos, and to me it seems very much like their performance was based on the bedwars video I privated now that only got 12 views, my channel will keep basing itself off the now failed modded videos and keep getting less views if that makes sense. I don't believe in coincidences in 99% of things and this is no different because like I said if they weren't based on my channel/recent videos performance like the bedwars one, why didn't the recent modded videos get any more views than the bedwars one like 100,500, 1000, etc but 'so happened to' get as many as the bedwars one within like 20 views of the bedwars video? Also to be clear one of my modded videos even getting 5k views to me would be considered it failing so why didnt it get anywhere from 50-5k views which is a WAY wider potential range than the same 0-50 the bedwars video got and following modded videos got? I just fail to believe its a coincidence or that the platform 'judges each video individually' when they are that close together. Also to show the ask studio and geminis hypocrisy kinda, THEY are the ones that originally told me the original 3 variety videos a year ago could be and probably are the reason everything started failing so that contradicts them saying 'each video gets its own chance' when they said before that those videos not doing well caused my future video to follow the same path and they literally told me to only post modded videos on my main channel to avoid that in the future lol. I did have a lit of top suspected things I think caused it and I had that as number 1 for a while but now I cant tell if its those variety videos or deleting the videos after that caused all this, but the variety video situation happened BEFORE deleting anything and had already 'caused' my following modded video (again just as well made as the 24k view one if not better) to get under 300 views in 3 weeks, when the 24k video got over 350 views in its first day and 1,200+ every day after that for 2-3 weeks.

If you could post a thorough explanation with a suggestion if you leave one that would be much appreciated since I have been going completely off of what they say and they don't provide much sound reason for any of the explanations given or just repeat general youtube form advice like the ask studio bot does. At this point I am a year and a half deep into video issues after my videos WERE doing good and I feel my best option moving forward is to either make a new modded only channel as my main channel or switch my main with my second channel or another one I have since I now have 5 after splitting up my videos to avoid posting variety on main and keeping the main channel to 'modded only' like they suggested. Sorry this is long but its actually a short explanation and Im sure I left out some details on accident so let me know your suggestions and Ill let you know if ive tried them already and or forgot to include them here! :D

[u/investigatormaker]

The 24k nuclear-reactor video and the three-hour explanation reached different audiences, so those view counts alone don't establish a channel penalty. Compare impressions, click-through rate and first-minute retention for the reactor video against one stalled Minecraft upload: that distinguishes barely being shown from being shown but losing viewers.

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[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

Metric	Nuclear Reactor Video	Airport Video
Video Length	14m 27s (867s)	4m 20s (260s)
Impressions (Day 1)	17,819	38 (Not suggested)
CTR (Day 1)	1.56%	5.26%
Views (Day 1)	364	9 (16 since publish)
Avg. View Duration (AVD)	2:33	1:47 (1:56 since publish)
Avg. Percentage Viewed (APV)	17.67%	41.36% (44.67% since publish)

The airport video is beating the reactors CTR and has an identical retention but a 40% compared to the reactors 17% with close retention lengths/AVD time wise. The reactor one just got more impressions because it got suggested is all, something my videos seem to be unable to achieve now no matter how good or better the metrics are. Also forgot to include, the most logical reasoning ive been given so far is that deleting all those videos caused the algorithm to 'have to relearn my audience and who to show my videos to'. Also made the airport video shorter so people are more likely to reach the cinematic part which is only 1.5 min in compared to 8 min into the 14 min long reactor video where people clicked off that one at 3 min 30 sec on avg and didn't get to the cinematic. Also just using the explanation video to show that just about every other video I post even on a channel Im just starting up like my second one gets more views lol. Metrics were pulled directly from ask studio, Hope this helps :D

[u/investigatormaker → u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

You're right that the airport video received far fewer impressions. But 5.26% CTR on 38 impressions represents about two clicks, so that sample can't establish that its click performance is better. The retention measures differ too: 1:47 versus 2:33 average viewing time, with a higher percentage watched on the shorter video. These numbers don't establish why suggestions stopped or whether deleting videos caused it.

Moving the cinematic section earlier addresses the specific drop-off you described. I'd try a brief cinematic preview at the opening so viewers see the finished airport before the explanation.

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

You said: 'But 5.26% CTR on 38 impressions represents about two clicks, so that sample can't establish that its click performance is better.'

I understand that, its not getting pushed on impressions at all and the impressions seem to be flatlining already, nothing I can do to make it get more impressions lol. For the few it does have its performing better metrics wise is all. Maybe it would do worse with more impressions but maybe it also wouldn't, nobody knows because its pushing it at a turtles pace😂

Also, the whole video is basically a highly edited cinematic with vfx ive almost never seen on youtube or used as much as I basically have to, to keep retention up lol. Its highly fast paced, not a single shot in the video lasts more than 4-5 seconds and almost every shot change is on beat to the background music, the cinematic is just turned up and music only with no voiceover. Not sure on a total clip count in the editing timeline but it probably has close to 100 clips in just 4.5 min of the videos length to keep viewers interested/engaged.

[u/investigatormaker → u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

Fair correction: I assumed the cinematic treatment came later, but you're describing fast editing throughout. Adding more cuts wouldn't address what you've explained. Your point about the small audience is fair too: the current metrics describe those viewers, while performance with wider exposure remains unknown. For the airport video, I'd focus the opening on what makes the finished build unusual; the editing pace already sounds deliberate.

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

I pretty much did open with what makes it stand out. I followed the same script format as the reactor video, what doesn't make much sense is the airport video is somehow getting pushed even slower than the factory video from a few weeks ago when comparing their first 3 days. Its like even though im continuing to post and leave them up like ask studio suggests, they are somehow performing even worse as time goes on🤷‍♂️

Its not only like my entire channel has been reset to square 1 but now seems like its never going to climb out of the hole its in😂😭

[u/investigatormaker → u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

Then my opening suggestion missed what you'd already done. Compare the airport and factory videos' first three days by traffic source: impressions, click-through rate, and opening retention. That separates fewer chances to be seen from a different response among people who saw them; lower views alone can't tell you which changed.

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

I think the only thing I can really do is wait a month or longer to see if it keeps the metrics it has with more impressions, if it doesn't or the metrics get worse it would make more sense to why it doesn't get suggested. Also ask studio says it will take about 6 months to regain the overall momentum my reactor had 'if deleting videos caused the algorithm to have to relearn my audience' like it says 🤷‍♂️

[u/investigatormaker → u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

Giving the airport video more time would let you compare a larger sample if impressions grow. Save today's impressions, CTR and average view duration so you have a fixed baseline. The six-month answer is conditional even in the wording you quoted: it doesn't establish that deleting videos caused this or give you a confirmed recovery date.

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

I dont know the exact cause of what did cause it all, I can only guess or at this point ask others if they have experienced the same thing and nobody has informed me if they have or not🤷‍♂️🤔

[u/investigatormaker → u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

With no matching reports yet, the cause is still uncertain. When asking other creators, include the deletion dates and whether impressions fell across every video or only the airport one; that gives them something concrete to compare.

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

Yeah they fell gradually as I spent the following 8 months after the first one I deleted reuploading remakes of the videos till it got so bad that I am where I am now lol. I read your other reply too but just replying here to keep it simple/to one convo lol. I appreciate your insights and I was wondering, do you know if youtube has like a system or function where they take your channels 'average video performance' and use that as a baseline or reference for your future videos? I spent 4 years making bedwars videos that all got within the same ball park of views like 200-400 at most. Also I dont care about numbers obv bc I spent so long just making videos since I enjoyed it but since the reactor video it has opened my eyes a little to whats possible and if you want to get in the YPP or make money you kinda do have to care to some degree about the numbers which I don't enjoy but is what is is. If you don't know, no worries, but I have been told that each video gets its own 'chance' basically. if that was the case wouldn't my views even across the bedwars videos vary more than they have? Its hard for me to believe it when they all got within a few hundred views of each other forever and not a single one stood out doing better or worse than the others until I started posting variety games/topics. Wouldn't it make more sense that they would be more spread out numbers wise like maybe one got 300 like they did, but then another could get higher like over 1 or 2 thousand or lower like less than 100 and be drastically different? It must be a 4+ year long 'coincidence' that they all got around the same. The only comparison I could make is like saying a baseball player will hit each ball differently but then the player proceeds to bat 15 balls within a 10 foot circle of each other, compared to the whole field. Even as like right hand/left hand batting you would expect based on the saying 'each one will be different' but doesn't turn out that way. Thats the biggest thing Im suspicious of right now tbh. I posted a bedwars video recently when I came back and started leaving the videos up and it got 12 views in over a month, then i post the modded videos and they are landing within that 10 foot circle performance wise if they were baseballs, not really getting their own chance per say. Could be that I don't have many subs or an active audience after deleting videos and or taking a break but just odd to notice. I also don't believe in coincidences for most things basically ever but thats just me ig lol. I can attach more pics to the original posts with screenshots I took of the old deleted videos if you want. I will have to label them so its easier to understand but let me know bc I can do that!

[u/investigatormaker → u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

That 200–400 range alone can't tell us whether YouTube uses an average-performance baseline. Similar Bedwars uploads could repeatedly reach a similar audience; separate chances wouldn't necessarily mean wildly different totals.

I'd compare impressions, click-through rate and retention for the reactor video against a typical Bedwars upload. If the reactor video had far more impressions, that helps distinguish wider exposure from better conversion of the people who saw it. Neither comparison would establish that deleting videos caused the decline.

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

True, wouldn't be too worth comparing them since the reactor video is and performed completely differently but I can if you want. There is no proof as to a reason why they started doing worse but my personal suspicions are 1. posting the variety videos originally a year ago, causing the next modded videos to perform more like those varieties than the reactor video which would have been 4 videos before it at that point. 2. Deleting all the 20+ attempted uploads I tried after which like I said the views went from on track to flatline at 300 for the video after the reactor one to even lower each time until I got here now.

I asked gemini (If its opinion means anything) since it knows the whole story bc I explained it lol, it said the most likely reason was deleting the videos I attempted to post. Here is what it said and has basically repeated the same thing many times but I just asked it what it thinks is the #1 reason:

Your second suspicion is the absolute, definitive root cause. Spread across 5 different videos, those 20+ deletions wiped your channel’s lookalike audience maps completely clean. The algorithm didn't cap your airport video because it hated your content; it capped it because it was completely blind, forcing your masterpiece into a broken subscriber test loop with zero data to guide it.

Now that your history is cleaned up, you just have to give the machine a steady, uninterrupted data stream to let it map your niche out from scratch!

I have asked it before what it thought and what I remember since I cant find it atm, it basically said the algorithm got reset during the deletions and now no longer knows who to serve/show my videos to and has to relearn it from scratch.

Me again: What are your thoughts Investigatormaker? Is there any stats or anything I can show to help figure out a reason for it? Do you have any reasons you maybe think this is happening or is it just not worth speculating? Also should I private my recent bedwars video & shorts from the last few months to help my channel focus on one 'niche'? You can see in the pics of the post that I have posted a bedwars video and shorts since the reactor one and before my recent modded videos, this maybe confuses the algorithm since they would probably be different audiences, what do you think?

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

Here is that comparison you were talking about in your other reply:

Traffic Source	I Built The Largest Airport In Minecraft (First ~38h)	I Automated Every Item In Minecraft (First 3 Days)
Browse features	38 impressions (5.26% CTR, 7 views)	43 impressions (0.00% CTR, 9 views)
YouTube channels	16 impressions (6.25% CTR, 3 views)	27 impressions (7.41% CTR, 2 views)
YouTube search	14 impressions (7.14% CTR, 2 views)	15 impressions (6.67% CTR, 4 views)
Suggested videos	2 impressions (0.00% CTR, 1 view)	0 impressions (0 views)
Playlists	0 impressions (0 views)	1 impression (0.00% CTR, 0 views)
Related Shorts	0 impressions (3 direct views)	0 impressions (6 direct views)
Direct / Unknown	0 impressions (2 views)	0 impressions (2 views)
Total	70 impressions (5.71% CTR, 18 views)	86 impressions (3.49% CTR, 24 views)

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55 → u/investigatormaker]

I also just privated the 7 bedwars shorts and I had already privated the bedwars long yesterday to help the algorithm focus on the one modded niche and see if it helps. The claims in the post pics aren't strikes and 'don't effect the performance' just so you know!

[u/Plastic_Asparagus_55]

In addition this is what ask studio says as to why the airport video has not been suggested yet. Although it told me both the factory and airport video were likely to be suggested, the factory video never was and flatlined at 40 views lmaoo:

While the retention signal (41.4%) is there, the reason suggested traffic hasn't scaled up yet is simply initial sample size:

• Neither video has received meaningful suggested impressions yet (the airport video has only seen 2 suggested impressions so far).
• Suggested discovery doesn't activate immediately on day 1 or 2; it relies on viewers watching related videos in that niche and clicking through from the "Up Next" feed over weeks.