YouTube to crack down on fake video views

Google is to start periodically auditing YouTube videos in a bid to clamp down on “fraudulent views”.

With more than six billion hours of video watched on YouTube each month, the Google-owned platform is the world’s biggest video-sharing website. However, it is suspected that many video views are a result of artificial inflation to make videos look more popular.

In a blog post, Google software engineer, Philipp Pfeiffenberger, wrote: “As part of our long-standing effort to keep YouTube authentic and full of meaningful interactions, we’ve begun periodically auditing the views a video has received.

“While in the past we would scan views for spam immediately after they occurred, starting today we will periodically validate the video’s view count, removing fraudulent views as new evidence comes to light.”

Pfeiffenberger added that although the move is not expected to affect more than a miniscule fraction of videos, it is crucial to improving the accuracy of view counts and maintaining trust from fans and creators.

According to eMarketer, in 2013, YouTube is expected to have generated approximately $5.6 billion in gross advertising revenue worldwide, accounting for 1.7% of global digital ad spend.