Invalid traffic

YouTube checks engagement constantly and filters out any play it decides did not come from a real person watching by choice: bots, view exchanges, purchased views, and the same video looping across several tabs. What you see is a count that freezes, slows or drops back after a spike, and that is the system settling rather than a bug in your analytics. Buying views is the fast route into trouble. The fake engagement policy allows removal of the content and termination of the channel in serious cases. Advertisers use the same phrase for ad clicks that get refunded as invalid.