Question 1

What does the YouTube Shorts channel audit analyze?

Accepted Answer

It reads up to the 12 newest Shorts on a public YouTube channel and analyzes the ones posted in the last 90 days (or all of them if none are that recent). You get a 0-100 channel score, engagement rate by views and by subscribers, average views, likes and comments per Short, Shorts per week, the engagement trend, and the three Shorts with the highest engagement by views. Long-form videos and live streams are not included.

Question 2

How is the channel score calculated?

Accepted Answer

It is the sum of four parts, the same as our TikTok account audit. Engagement by views (up to 40 points): Excellent 40, Good 32, Average 24, Below Average 14, Poor 6. Engagement trend (up to 20): improving 20, stable 14, declining 6. Posting consistency (up to 20): 0.5 to 3 Shorts a day scores 20, at least 0.2 a day scores 12, less scores 6, and fewer than two Shorts scores 0. Engagement by subscribers (up to 20): at or above the expected floor for the channel's size scores 20, at or above the red-flag level scores 10, below it scores 2.

Question 3

What is a good YouTube Shorts channel score?

Accepted Answer

80-100 is Excellent, 60-79 Good, 40-59 Average, 20-39 Poor and under 20 Very Poor. The score is a quick summary, so check the breakdown to see which part is holding a channel back.

Question 4

What is a good engagement rate on YouTube Shorts?

Accepted Answer

By views, (likes + comments) / views, our bands are: 8% or more Excellent, 5-8% Good, 3-5% Average, 1.5-3% Below Average, under 1.5% Poor. They sit below our TikTok bands because YouTube does not report shares on Shorts. By subscribers, we expect at least 0.6% for channels under 10K subscribers, 0.3% for 10K-100K, 0.2% for 100K-500K, 0.16% for 500K-1M and 0.1% for 1M+. Shorts average about 0.3% by subscribers across the industry, far below TikTok. These are working benchmarks, not official YouTube figures.

Question 5

Why are shares and saves missing?

Accepted Answer

YouTube does not publish share or save counts for Shorts, so both engagement rates count likes and comments only. A channel whose likes are hidden shows 0 likes and scores low on engagement.

Question 6

How is the engagement trend calculated?

Accepted Answer

We fit a straight line through each Short's engagement by views over the period analyzed. If the line rises by more than half a percentage point from the first to the last Short, the trend is improving; if it falls by more than that, declining; otherwise stable.

Question 7

What can I enter?

Accepted Answer

A channel @handle (with or without the @), a channel ID starting with UC, or a channel URL such as youtube.com/@handle or youtube.com/channel/UC.... A video or Short URL is not a channel, so open the channel page and copy its URL instead.

Question 8

Why does a channel show no Shorts?

Accepted Answer

The audit only reads a channel's Shorts tab. A channel that only posts long-form videos or live streams, or whose Shorts are all private, has nothing to score here.

Question 9

How often should I audit a YouTube Shorts channel?

Accepted Answer

Audit a creator before signing a deal and again during long partnerships. For your own channel, a monthly check is enough to see the trend. Results are cached for an hour, so re-running sooner shows the same numbers.

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