---
title: 'YouTube Shorts Algorithm Update Explained for 2026 (Hacks to Get 100K+ Subscribers FAST)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=MMDdrb7sdQw'
video_id: 'MMDdrb7sdQw'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 765
---

# YouTube Shorts Algorithm Update Explained for 2026 (Hacks to Get 100K+ Subscribers FAST)

> Source: [YouTube Shorts Algorithm Update Explained for 2026 (Hacks to Get 100K+ Subscribers FAST)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=MMDdrb7sdQw)

## Summary

The video outlines five key changes to the YouTube algorithm for 2026, emphasizing that adapting to these changes is crucial for growth, especially for small channels. The creator claims to have helped multiple channels gain over 100,000 subscribers by implementing these strategies.

### Key Points

- **Update Old Content to 2026** [0:31] — Change all instances of '2025' in titles, descriptions, tags, and thumbnails to '2026' to maintain relevancy. Use YouTube Studio search to find and update old videos.
- **Publish to Subscribers Only If They Engage** [2:16] — Check analytics to see if subscribers have higher average view duration than non-subscribers. If not, disable the 'Publish to Subscriptions feed' option to avoid hurting reach.
- **Create Only Trending Content** [4:34] — YouTube is now 100% interest-based. Use tools like Metricle to identify trending topics and formats in your niche, and create content that matches proven audience interests.
- **Add Custom Thumbnails to Shorts** [7:45] — Custom thumbnails are essential for Shorts appearing in browse and search. Upload Shorts from a mobile device to add custom thumbnails, then use a computer to optimize other settings.
- **Prioritize Shorts Over Long-Form** [9:42] — YouTube favors Shorts, which appear in more places (Shorts feed, search, homepage, suggested). Creators like MrBeast get 80% of views from Shorts. Increase Shorts upload frequency.

### Conclusion

Adapting to the 2026 YouTube algorithm requires updating old content, optimizing subscriber targeting, focusing on trending topics, using custom thumbnails for Shorts, and prioritizing Shorts over long-form content. These changes are essential for maximizing reach and growth.

## Transcript

YouTube just released a brand new 2026
algorithm and you need to make sure that
you're adapting to the five changes I'm
going to share with you in this video.
Because if you make these five changes,
it's easier than ever before for you to
grow on YouTube right now, especially if
you're a small channel. In fact, I just
helped this creator, this creator, and
this creator gain over 100,000
subscribers in a really short period of
time simply by adapting to these five
things. But I do want to warn you, if
you ignore these changes and don't
actually make them with your content,
you're going to get less views than ever
before in 2026. So, please don't skip
any of these. Change number one is you
need to make sure that you're going
through all of your old content today
and changing anything that says 2025. If
it says it in the tags, you need to
change it. If it says it in the
description, you need to change it. And
if it says it in the title or the
thumbnail, you also need to make sure
that you change it. And here's a super
easy way for you to be able to do this.
Now, here's the easiest way to actually
do this. What you're going to want to do
is you're going to want to come over
into your content into YouTube Studio.
You want to come over here and type in
2025. What this is then going to do is
this is going to pull up all of your
content that has 2025 inside of the
title. And as we can see here, I have
152 videos that I have to go through.
So, what I now need to go through, and
I'm going to have my team do this also,
is this will show me everything that has
a thumbnail with 2025 or a title with
2025. And now we could come into each of
these and we can update these so that we
actually have the correct year. Because
here's the deal. If somebody does a
search for how to skyrocket your views
on Tik Tok fast, what's going to happen
is somebody else is going to make a
video about 2026 and then they are going
to get served that content because
YouTube cares about relevancy. And as we
go in 2026 or we're in 2026 now that
you're watching this, guess what? That
relevancy is going to be the difference
between your video getting clicked on
versus your video not getting clicked
on. So you want to make sure that you're
going through you're changing 2026 here.
You can also do control find. You could
find that I have 2025 here. Also, we're
going to grab this. We're going to
change these things. We're going to
click on save. And then this is going to
get this video kicked back into the
algorithm. If we look at the analytics
on this right now, what we'll see is
that this video took off and then
started to die off. But as we change
that and go through and change those
titles, those thumbnails, the
description, the tags, these videos are
then going to get kicked back into the
algorithm and get way more views. Change
number two is you need to make sure that
you're not publishing your content to
your subscribers in 2026 if they're
destroying your reach. And there's a
very easy way for you to be able to
figure this out. You just have to go in
your analytics and see whether or not
your subscribers are engaging with your
content as much as people aren't
subscribed to you are. Because if your
content is mainly getting engagement
from people that aren't subscribed to
you, then what happens is when YouTube
shows your content to your subscribers,
this could actually be lowering your
reach. Now, here's how you get to
determine whether or not you need to do
that. What you want to do is you want to
come into your analytics and then you're
going to click on advanced mode right
here and you going to come over here to
breakdown. What we want to do is scroll
down a little bit and you are going to
see subscription status. Now, what this
is going to do is show you who's
actually watching your content. So, as
we can see right here, average view
duration with people that aren't
subscribed to me is 139. For my
subscribers, it's 338. So, I'm actually
getting way more average view duration
from my subscribers. Now, that's exactly
why I leave my subscribers turned on
here. And if we scroll down, I'll show
you where this setting actually is. So,
it's going to be right here next to
embedding. I keep this turned on, but if
you're getting more average view
duration from people that are not
subscribed to you, then you want to make
sure that this turns this off. But
again, this is going to be on a channel
by channel basis. And it might be
different between different topics or
even between different types of content.
So, if we come over here and we look at
this again back here, we're going to
come up to advanced mode, see the
status, and see that not subscribe
doesn't watch my content anywhere near
as long. Now, this is a Tik Tok video.
If we look at this 139 versus 338, this
might be completely different for a
video on a different topic. Now, if we
look at that for something about
Instagram, it is completely different.
We could see that not subscribed on
Instagram 3 minutes and 34 seconds, but
subscribed 5 minutes. So, depending on
the topic, this is going to drastically
change this. So, if you upload about
multiple topics on your YouTube channel,
you want to make sure that you're
checking this out for all the different
topics that you could be uploading on.
And if we come over to shorts, we're
going to see the same exact thing. So,
again, come into details right here.
Come into analytics. Then under advanced
mode, we could come over here. We could
type in sub. We're going to see
subscription status. And we'll see how
this affects things. So, when we look at
my shorts, it actually doesn't affect it
at all. in which case I want my content
to get shown to more nonsubscribers.
Change number three is you need to make
sure that you adapt the type of content
that you're creating to only be trending
content because YouTube is now a 100%
interestbased algorithm. What does this
mean? That one, videos that are on a
topic that your audience isn't engaging
with just won't get any reach. Two, if
your length is wrong on your content,
you're not going to get any reach. And
three, if you are just overall doing
something that there isn't a proven
audience for on YouTube, this is why
you're not getting the views that you
want. But don't worry, because there's
an easy way to fix this. In fact,
today's video sponsor, Metricle, makes
this incredibly easy to do, and it's my
hack to doing this in less than 30
seconds every single day. Now, here's
exactly how I do this using Metricle.
And as we can see, this has really
helped my growth on YouTube. You're
going to log into Metricle. You're going
to click on YouTube. And then we can
scroll all the way down. And this right
here is where you can add in all of your
different competitors. And then you'll
be able to click on view video list
right here. And this will literally show
you exactly what is trending in your
niche. For example, this video right
here published 2 days ago got 20,000
views. That's way more views than
everything else that's been published in
my niche. So now I could see what this
is and then I could click on it and this
will tell me the format that is doing
really well and what type of content aka
the topic that's doing really well. And
if we come through here, we'll be able
to find even more of them. So this video
right here, this video right here, this
video right here, and this video right
here are clearly doing the best. So if I
needed video topics for this upcoming
week, those are the ones that I would
choose. In addition to that, I'd pay
attention to these formats. Now, if you
want to find out exactly what your
audience is engaging with, I would
strongly suggest you go to the pin
comment below and get 30 days free
access to Metricle today with any of
their premium plans with Code Robert.
Because in addition to that, Metricool
also makes it incredibly easy for you to
be able to push out your content on
other platforms like Instagram,
Facebook, Tik Tok, and others in order
to get more reach on YouTube. Because
another thing you need to make sure that
you're doing is increasing the amount of
traffic that you're bringing to YouTube
from other platforms. Here's how they
make it easy. Now, here's how Metro
makes that incredibly easy. What you're
going to want to do is you're going to
want to come over here and click on
planning. From here, you're going to
click on create post. And this allows
you to upload to all these different
platforms at once. You could post on
Facebook, post on Instagram, you could
post on Tik Tok. And you can see the
other platforms that show up here. And
this allows you to schedule out posts on
all those platforms from one place. In
addition to that, they also have this AI
description generator right here, which
allows you to generate descriptions that
are optimized for each social media
platform right here. In addition to
that, they also have this hashtag tool
that lets you find the best hashtags for
Instagram and Tik Tok. So, you'll be
able to put out content across multiple
platforms, all driving back to your
YouTube channel to help you grow
quicker. And the YouTube algorithm loves
this right now. Oh, and one other bonus
thing that I absolutely love about
Metrical is if we click on inbox right
here, what this is going to allow us to
do is this is going to allow us to see
our inbox across all these different
platforms, all from one place instead of
having to log into all these different
platforms to manage your DMs, your
inbox, and your comments. So, what are
you waiting for? Hit that pin comment
below in order to get 30 days free
access to any of their premium plans
with code Robert. Change number four is
you need to make sure that you're adding
a custom thumbnail to every single
YouTube short that you upload. This is
more important than ever before because
now the majority of YouTube Shorts views
aren't just coming from the Shorts feed.
In fact, they're coming from browse
features and they're coming from search.
So unless you have a custom thumbnail
on, guess what? You're not going to get
the views that you want. And the only
way that you could do this is by
uploading your content from a mobile
device. Let me explain. Okay, so here's
how you actually do this. We're going to
come over to YouTube right here. And
this is how you should be uploading all
of your shorts content. You want to
click on this little plus right here.
Then from here, you're going to click on
add. And you're going to grab the video
that you were going to upload. For
example, let's say we were going to
upload this video right here. We are now
going to click on next. We're going to
click on done. Now, this is going to
take a second right here to process. But
once this is done processing, we're
going to have the ability to choose that
custom thumbnail. And again, you need to
make sure that you're adding in this
custom thumbnail because this is going
to make the difference between your
video getting clicked on and your video
showing in all these different places
versus it not. So, we come over here.
We're going to click on next. Then,
you'll see this little pencil icon. And
again, you can only do this from a
mobile device. Now, what this is going
to allow you to do is grab whatever part
of the video you want to make sure that
you're going to do. For example, we're
going to do this right here. We can now
add text here. And we could say
something like never use more than three
hashtags. And then we could change the
size of this right here if we wanted to.
But this looks perfect right here. We
can move it up. And then boom, we just
click on this check. And now we have a
custom thumbnail here. And this is going
to help you rank for search. This is
going to help you get views from browse
features. And you need to make sure that
when you add in a custom thumbnail, what
you do next is come over here, schedule
out this video. And then you want to
come back to your computer in order to
set up the rest of the settings in order
to maximize your reach because you won't
get all those settings from your
computer. But you won't be able to add a
custom thumbnail from your computer. So
you have to use both your phone and your
computer to upload YouTube shorts to
maximize your views. And then change
number five is you need to make sure
that you start taking more time in
between you going live or you uploading
long form content because gone are the
days where you could just flood YouTube
with a bunch of long- form content. Now
YouTube wants you to flood their
algorithm with short form content. And
I'm not saying that you should be
uploading 10 to 20 times a day, but if
you want to upload every day two or
three times a day, you should be doing
this with shorts content because shorts
can get shown in way more places than
long form content. I mean, think about
it. Your long- form content on YouTube
only shows in two places. It shows on
the browse features, aka the home tab,
and two, in the search results. It also
shows on the suggested feed, but there's
really not that much real estate there.
But when it comes to shorts, they could
show up on suggested, they could show up
on the shorts feed, they could show up
on search, and they can also show up on
the homepage. So guess what? YouTube
shorts just have way more areas to show
up. Which is why the creators that are
growing the fastest right now in 2026,
like Mr. Beast, like Hormosi, like Gary
Vee, they're all uploading more YouTube
shorts. In fact, they're getting more
views from their YouTube shorts than any
other type of content. Let me prove this
to you. So, here's the proof of this. If
we look at Mr. Be's channel right here
and we scroll down, we could see he's
gotten 600 million long form views. But
if we compare that to shorts, 2.2
billion. So he's getting about 80% of
his reach from YouTube shorts. And it's
no different if we look at somebody like
Alex Heroszi. If we scroll down here,
4.5 million views from long form. But if
we look at shorts, 15 million. So he's
getting three times the number of views
again around 75 to 80%. And it's no
different if we look at somebody like
Gary Vee. If we come down here, 500,000
views from long form, 1.8 million almost
four times from shorts. So, please do
not make the mistake in 2026 of ignoring
YouTube shorts because I cannot
emphasize it enough. YouTube is pushing
YouTube shorts more than any other type
of content on the platform. And I
literally just proved it to you by
showing you Alex Herozy's views, Gary
Views views, Mr. Beast views. So, it
doesn't matter if you're uploading
educational content, or if you're
uploading entertainment content. I'm
telling you, doubling down on shorts
this year is going to be the most
powerful thing that you could possibly
do. And YouTube is also bringing
shopping back to YouTube Shorts. So,
you're going to be able to partner up
with brands in order to put a link
inside of YouTube Shorts. You can tag
products inside of YouTube Shorts. And
this is going to be a massive
opportunity not only for you to get more
subscribers, get more viewers, but also
for you to be able to monetize YouTube
Shorts because YouTube is doubling down
on this as we head into 2026. Now, if
you want help growing faster on YouTube
one-on-one, the same exact way that I
helped this creator, this creator, and
this creator, I would strongly suggest
you check out this video right here that
walks you through three different ways
that we can begin to work together
one-on-one in order to help you grow
faster on YouTube. Because it doesn't
have to be hard to for you to get the
views, the subscribers, or the
monetization that you want to on
YouTube, especially when you work with
somebody that already knows everything
that you need to do. If that sounds
interesting, I'll see you over