Ever wonder how exactly Google/YouTube counts a "view" in YouTube? Is it each time a video page in YouTube is opened? Is it each time a video is played? Does "Autoplaybacks" count?
YouTube Anna, an official YouTube representative has confirmed that "autoplaybacks" do not count towards the view count of a video. She said,
View counts are important to the community and are a reflection of the interests and intents of video viewers. Autoplaybacks are not counted toward the visible "views" numbers displayed on the YouTube site because autoplaybacks are not viewer initiated.
It appears that a view is counted only when a user initiates the play feature on the video. That can be at YouTube.com, at a third-party site with the embedded version of the video or in a search result.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
