A guide to YouTube public statistics
Public statistics are the numbers anyone can see for a video. They are useful for context, but they are a thin slice of what YouTube measures.
Views
A view is a count YouTube decides to publish after its own validity checks. Numbers can pause, jump or be adjusted as YouTube filters spam and automated traffic. YouTube has also changed how Shorts views are counted over time, so older and newer Shorts figures may not be directly comparable. The count you get here is the value the API returns at the moment you check.
Likes
The like count is public only when the creator allows it. If a creator hides likes, or the API does not return the figure, this tool shows “Not available”. YouTube removed public dislike counts in 2021, so they cannot be shown for any video.
Comments
The comment count is missing when comments are turned off. Where it is present, it can differ from the number you see in the app, because of held-for-review, removed or deleted comments and update delays.
Like-to-view ratio
This is likes divided by views, shown as a percentage. It is a rough indicator of how many viewers chose to like. It is not a quality score. Ratios vary widely by topic, audience, format and video age, and Shorts and long videos behave differently. Compare videos of the same kind only, and treat small differences as noise.
What this tool cannot show
- Watch time, average view duration and audience retention
- Impressions and click-through rate
- Revenue and ad performance
- Viewer demographics, traffic sources and subscribers gained
- Private, unlisted-and-unavailable, deleted or age-restricted videos the API will not return
Channel owners can see these in YouTube Studio. Reading them for someone else’s channel is not possible without that owner’s permission, and this tool does not attempt it.
Data freshness
Results are cached for a few minutes to save API quota, so two checks in quick succession can show the same numbers. Every result shows the time it was fetched.