Short, plain definitions of the terms you'll meet in YouTube Studio, in monetization emails and on this site. Each links to the tools and guides where the term matters.
- AdSense PIN — a code posted to your address to verify your AdSense account.
- Audience retention — the percentage of a video viewers keep watching at each moment.
- Average view duration — the average time viewers spent watching a video.
- Browse features — traffic from the YouTube home page, subscriptions feed and watch later.
- Cards — small clickable prompts that appear during a video.
- Chapters — labelled sections of a video created from timestamps.
- Click-through rate (CTR) — the share of impressions that turn into views.
- Community guidelines strike — a penalty for violating YouTube's community guidelines.
- Community tab — a channel feed for text, image, poll and quiz posts.
- Concurrent viewers — the number of people watching a live stream at the same moment.
- Copyright strike — a penalty issued after a valid copyright takedown request.
- Drip-feed — splitting one order into smaller runs over time.
- End screen — clickable elements in the last 5–20 seconds of a video.
- Engaged views — a Shorts metric counting views that weren't immediately swiped away.
- High-retention views — views that watch a larger share of the video.
- Impressions — how many times your thumbnails were shown on YouTube.
- Made for kids — a required setting for content directed at children.
- Non-drop — options described as dropping less after delivery.
- Playlist SEO — making playlists findable and binge-worthy.
- Premiere — a pre-recorded video played at a scheduled time with live chat.
- Refill — free top-up of drops within a set window after delivery.
- Returning viewers — viewers who've watched your channel before.
- Reused content — a YPP policy against content that isn't meaningfully yours.
- RPM vs CPM — two ways of measuring ad money per 1,000 views.
- Shorts feed — the vertical, swipeable feed where Shorts are shown.
- Start time — how long before an order begins delivering.
- Suggested traffic — views that come from the 'up next' and suggested videos panel.
- Super Thanks — a one-time tip viewers can send on a video.
- Tags — hidden keywords added to a video in Studio.
- Unique viewers — an estimate of distinct people who watched.
- Watch hours — total hours viewers spent watching your videos.
- YouTube Partner Program (YPP) — YouTube's programme for sharing revenue with creators.