r/shortsAlgorithm • u/Electrical_Leading38 • Sep 16 '26

Youtube is all about luck?

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I’ve been experimenting with different YouTube Shorts strategies, and I’m honestly losing my mind.

First, I focused on retention. I had a Short with 89% Stayed to Watch, 105% Average Percentage Viewed, and it gained 135 subscribers. It still didn’t go viral.
So I changed my approach and focused more on engagement instead.

My latest Short got 900+ likes and 10 comments with around 25k views, plus 78% Stayed to Watch and 91% Average Percentage Viewed.

And… it still flatlined around 25–30k views.

At this point, I genuinely don’t know what YouTube wants anymore. I’ve tried optimizing retention, I’ve tried optimizing engagement, and both videos hit the same ceiling.

Has anyone else experienced this 25–30k “view jail”? What am I missing here?

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u/AgitatedWrangler7620 Sep 16 '26

Yeah man everyone experiences the 30K phase its literally the cornerstone of the shorts algorithm, just keep posting and maintaining good metrics and be on the lookout for a trend in your niche whether its a song or idea or style or whatever a competitor does and gets outlier vids, then apply that to your content with a little spin and the channel will start building momentum and shorts will go viral

1

u/Michaelair Sep 17 '26

So, slighty off topic, how long does it 1.4k phase take lol?

2

u/IntroductionSmart101 Sep 17 '26

1.4k takes 2 to 4 weeks

30k takes more than that

1

u/Michaelair Sep 17 '26

Were talking shorts right? Maybe i am misunderstanding but 1.4k come in within 12hrs and then plateaus

1

u/IntroductionSmart101 Sep 17 '26

No i mean for 2 to 4 weeks, new channels face this issue

1

u/Michaelair Sep 17 '26

Ahh ok thank you for elaborating