What brands see when they look you up
On 24 August 2026 YouTube changed what a public view means. It now counts from the first frame, so the number on your videos rises even when someone leaves after a second. The stricter count, the one that measures whether anyone actually watched, still exists. It is called engaged views, and it is visible to you and to nobody else.
That leaves one number travelling the internet on your behalf, and it is the generous one. Brands have been told not to trust screenshots. So the figure they act on is whichever one they can find.
Where your numbers already travel
Creator discovery databases
you did not opt inHandle, follower and view counts, engagement rates, and often an email address, compiled by watching public posts.
Viral leaderboards and trend reports
you did not opt inYour best-performing posts ranked publicly, frequently with unlabelled numbers and no stated source.
Brand and agency shortlists
you did not opt inScreenshots and exports of the above, circulated privately and impossible to correct after the fact.
Your own media kit
you chose thisNumbers you chose, in a PDF a brand has been told not to trust, because a screenshot is trivially edited.
What this page is not
- It is not a database of creators. Looking up a channel here reads YouTube’s public API live and stores nothing about you.
- It does not estimate your engaged views. For a channel that has not connected, that number is genuinely unknown to us, and we would rather say so than model it.
- It has no contact details for anyone, and never will. A number about you should come from you.