Like rate

Divide a video's likes by its views and you have the like rate. YouTube does use viewer satisfaction when it ranks, gathered from likes, dislikes, not-interested feedback and in-product surveys, so the signal behind the number is real. Treating it as a dial you can turn is where people go wrong, because like rate moves with topic and with how strongly a video takes a position. On Shorts, per-video signals such as average view duration carry more consistent weight in recommendations than likes and comments do, since every Short has a watch pattern and only some collect interactions. Track yours against your own back catalogue, because what matters is the direction it moves in.