Every YouTuber dream is to see their channel growth. Growing a YouTube channel takes time and effort, the reason why some creators inflate their numbers by purchasing fake subscribers to boost their subs count.
Having fake subscribers might seem like a shortcut to channel growth but this can actually hurt your content in the long run. YouTube’s algorithm prioritizes engagement, so if your subscriber count is high but your views, likes, or comments are low, it could negatively impact your channel’s visibility and discoverability.
Some clear indicators of fake subscribers include:
In this article we’ll explore everything you need to know to identify fake subscribers and ways you can do to avoid them harming your channel. Let’s dive in!
Some key characteristics to identify fake subscribers include:
Every YouTube viewer probably steps on more than one bot channel or comment while navigating the platform. On the surface, they look normal, but there are some key signs that make them easily recognizable.
There are channels that, despite having a large subscriber count, don’t have a high engagement as expected. An imbalance between subs and views, likes and comments may indicate fake followers.
Real subscribers are much more likely to interact with your content because they truly enjoyed watching your videos and that’s why they follow you.
The Endless Adventures Channel on Youtube holds a loyal community of people who really enjoy watching the couple's adventures. They post regularly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Every video has lots of interesting comments or words of appreciation for the traveller couple. Which shows how involved thor audience is. If they had fake subscribers, comments wouldn’t be so related to the topics on the video and people would not engage that much with their content.
How can you calculate a YouTuber’s engagement? You can use the Engagement Rate formula.
Pro tip: Typically the average engagement for a channel is around 2%.
Whenever a channel has an unnatural number of subs added to its community without an apparent reason, it may indicate fake followers presence.
It’s not that unpredictable growth can never happen overnight. Sometimes videos go viral and gain lots of views and subs in a couple of hours or days. But this would be justified as a viral trend or occasion that serves as an explanation for the fast growth.
Real subs make comments related to the main topics or discussion in the video. Vague comments, generic phrases or random emojis may indicate bots. Also, sometimes there are a lot of spam comments promoting different sites or other YouTube channels in the comment section.
A great way to detect fake followers is to compare the number of views a channel has vs. the number of subscribers. If they are real subs, the number of views will be in a way related to that number. But if the subscriber base is high, but the channel has almost no views, that is a clear red flag for fake followers.
This channel holds over 500K subs but only 5 or 7 people watched their latest Live Sessions.
Fake subscribers only follow the channel but don’t take the time to watch the videos there.
Any irregular or unexpected viewer behavior can be taken as a sign as well. The location of the majority of viewers most times matches the location of the creator. Depending on the type of content, the channel can reach new audiences for different countries.
Organic audiences are often concentrated in the creator’s target demographic or region. But sometimes there are weird groups of followers for random countries that have no relation with the creator nor the content.
Traffic sources allow you to understand where viewers find your videos. In other words they tell you where your viewers come from. These include:
If any of these does not resonate with your channel but brings in views, chances are they are bot views. For example, if you suddenly get a spike in views from an unfamiliar website that doesn't relate to your niche where you haven’t shared your video, it might be artificial traffic rather than genuine engagement.
If the watch time is low but the views or subscribers are high, this can be another indicator. Most times bots watch videos just for the first couple of seconds, fake followers don’t watch content for long.
On the other hand, real viewers tend to watch longer and engage with content, so a mismatch between views and watch time suggests artificial growth.
Real subscribers often engage with a creator across multiple platforms, not just YouTube. If a channel has thousands of subscribers but little to no presence or interaction on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, it could indicate fake followers.
Content creators, especially the ones focused on channel growth, are consistently posting new content. Consistency allows them to engage more with their audience as well as reach other audiences.
If a channel has long periods of inactivity followed by sudden bursts of uploads and subscriber gains that can be an indicator of bot activity or purchased subscribers.
YouTube Analytics can help you evaluate the authenticity of an influencer’s audience and performance. By analyzing their metrics, you can identify potential red flags.
Reviewing your YouTube Analytics helps you spot inconsistencies and determine the authenticity level of your audience.
Besides the basic signs you can manually learn to detect fake subscribers there are different online tools you can use to spot fake subs.
These kinds of tools can be essential for content creators seeking to maintain genuine engagement and credibility. These platforms analyze subscriber activity, engagement patterns, and audience authenticity to help you identify and remove fake or low-quality followers.
Here’s a quick list of the top 3 most popular tools:
1. Creator Hero: A fake subscribers tool that helps YouTubers and brands detect inauthentic followers. There’s a free plan and a Pro Plan ($19/month).
2. Heepsy: A tool that analyzes creators’ social media audience and detect fake subscribers on YouTube. Plans starting at $49/month.
3. Modash: A tool to ensure audience authenticity. It offers a 14-day free trial and plans starting at $299/month.
If you want to learn more about these tools, you can check out our article on Top 5 Tools to Spot and Remove YouTube Fake Subscribers!
YouTube is a platform mainly based on engagement. Views, likes, comments, shares, watch time, audience retention and subscribers are all interfering with the algorithm in deciding which videos to push more or less.
The more interactions your videos generate, the better for you as a creator. And who is better at creating those interactions: real or fake subscribers?
Fake bots do not care for your videos, your channel or your YouTuber’s journey. They are not going to entirely watch your videos, leave meaningful comments and share your content outside the platform. They are only going to add up to your subs count and amount of views. This is not enough to show the YouTube algorithm the real value behind your channel.
Fake subscribers will most certainly kill your CTR, Watch Time and Audience Retention. These metrics are truly important if you want to have YouTube’s algorithm by your side and reach organic and realistic growth.
Besides messing up with some key metrics, video performance and your channel's real growth, fake subs can also lead to serious penalties as YouTube explicitly prohibits the purchase of subscribers.
The least severe consequence of having fake subscribers is that YouTube is going to erase them from your subs count. The platform is regularly seeking inactive accounts so most of artificial or fake growth is only temporary.
A bigger issue is that YouTube can take the next step and stop recommending your content, taking away your visibility. If you have lots of subscribers but poor watch time and low engagement, the algorithm reads this as a channel that no longer generates interest for the viewers. This means your videos won’t show up in recommendations, making it even harder to grow organically.
Lastly, but not least, YouTube can ultimately decide to delete your account if the fake followers situation goes on over time.
So, bottom line: Don’t Buy Fake Subs! This may seem like an easier way to grow and give your first steps into monetization. But in the long run, fake followers will only hurt your channel and attempt against your real chances of audience growth in the future.
Veed Creators is a YouTube channel focused on creative tips and fresh strategies to help creators stand out. A couple years ago they created a brand new channel and purchased 1,000 subs to conduct an experiment and share the results.
They wanted to see if the fake subs will also contribute to views and watch time. Why? Because if you want to be able to monetize your content on YouTube you need to have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers but also 4,000 watch hours.
This will allow you to join the YouTube Partner Program and you’ll be able to start making money out of your content. If you want to know more, check out our guide to Understanding YouTube Ad Revenue!
Now, let’s go back to the example! A couple weeks went by after the purchase and the channel gathered 94 subscribers, between 10 and13 every day. However, the final objective was too far along yet YouTube was already upon them because one day the channel lost 13 subs at once. This was clearly YouTube deleting fake accounts.
How did they manage to realize they were fake? Digging deeper, the purchase did provide subs but when you checked the views the results were incredibly low. Only 1 view from 2 uploaded videos. If there were 94 real subscribers, this would be impossible which triggers a suspicious alert for YouTube.
So is buying followers really useful? It sure is an easier, faster way to grow, but how real is that growth if you are only dealing with fake bots that don’t truly enjoy and engage with your content?
Fake subscribers can be an appealing shortcut but they are never going to resemble the feeling of building a loyal and supportive community over time.
Real subs take longer to get, but once you convince them they are more likely to stay, interact with your content and ideas and help you grow your YouTube channel and monetization opportunities.
So here are some tips to take into account while building your dream audience and keeping your subs count growing!
Yes, it is entirely possible to gain free subscribers on YouTube without paying or purchasing subscriptions. Building a loyal and engaged audience takes time and effort, but it's sustainable and more rewarding in the long term. Here are effective methods to achieve this:
Always focus on the type of content you want to create and find the best way to do so. Create valuable, entertaining and engaging content that keeps your viewers wanting more and more! Find your niche and those topics that truly resonate with your audience.
Besides the idea and the script, make sure to have both good video and audio quality to keep viewers engaged and watching until your video is over.
Use relevant keywords in your video title, description, and tags. Make sure everything surrounding your video adds value and contributes to its discoverability.
Create compelling thumbnails and titles, use hashtags and categorize your videos appropriately. If you want to, you can also add timestamps for a better user navigation experience. You can learn more about this in our article How To Add Timestamps on YouTube!
Consistency is the key to YouTube growth. Develop a content schedule, such as weekly or bi-weekly uploads and respect the posting days.
By doing this, you are actively building audience trust and anticipation as your viewers get used to watching new content on particular dates.
Take care of your community. Interact with your viewers, encourage likes, comments, and subscriptions by directly asking for them naturally. You can also use polls and live streams to build stronger connections.
Find a niche you are comfortable working in and explore every topic related to that specific subgroup. Niche content helps attract a specific, dedicated audience.
Share your videos on other platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter for better awareness and discoverability.
Work with creators in your niche for mutual promotion. Do collaborative videos in order to expose your channel to new audiences. It’s a win-win scenario for both creators as they both have the opportunity to gain more viewers.
Create content around trending challenges, events, or viral topics to boost your channel’s visibility.
Keep Posting, Keep Learning! Success is always about consistency. Make different kinds of videos and track their performance. Experiment with different titles and descriptions and always check how your viewers react to your content to find out what they like the most.
Sometimes fake followers can show up on your channel even if you never bought them. This can happen due to spam content or massive campaigns or competitors sabotage. But don’t you worry! In this article you have everything you need to know to deal with fake subs.
Regularly monitoring your overall performance is always recommended. If your channel is growing fast, you can always double check your subscribers count to ensure your channel remains clean and authentic.
Every YouTuber wants to see their subscriber base grow. More subs means more views and this can directly impact your potential earnings on the platform.
Taking shortcuts is not the way to be successful on YouTube. Fake followers will only sabotage your video’s performance and can ultimately lead to your channel's deletion.
If you stay consistent and work everyday to provide high quality content, there’s no doubt you are going to build your own loyal and trusty audience. A big community opens up tons of monetization opportunities so you can be able to make a living out of the content you create.
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