List of most-viewed YouTube videos
List of YouTube videos that have been viewed the most
Why this is trending
Interest in “List of most-viewed YouTube videos” spiked on Wikipedia on 2026-02-25.
Categorised under Science & Nature, this article fits a familiar pattern. Science and technology topics tend to trend after breakthroughs, space missions, health announcements, or widely shared research findings.
At GlyphSignal we surface these trending signals every day—transforming Wikipedia’s vast pageview data into actionable insights about global curiosity.
Key Takeaways
- YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California.
- Although the most-viewed were initially viral videos uploaded by amateur content creators, such as "Evolution of Dance" and "Charlie Bit My Finger", they have increasingly become music videos produced on behalf of professional recording artists.
- In November 2005, a Nike advertisement featuring Brazilian football player Ronaldinho became the first video to reach 1,000,000 views.
- On January 13, 2022, Pinkfong's "Baby Shark" became the first video to hit 10,000,000,000 views.
- To ensure that traffic is coming from actual humans and not scripts or other deceptive methods, YouTube has a secret algorithm to separate legitimate views from illegitimate ones, and only legitimate views are included in the view count.
YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The site indicates view counts of each uploaded video, making it possible to keep track of the most viewed, many of which continue to exist while others are no longer available on the site. Although the most-viewed were initially viral videos uploaded by amateur content creators, such as "Evolution of Dance" and "Charlie Bit My Finger", they have increasingly become music videos produced on behalf of professional recording artists. Since Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" in 2009, every video that has reached the top of the "most-viewed YouTube videos" list has been a music video.
In November 2005, a Nike advertisement featuring Brazilian football player Ronaldinho became the first video to reach 1,000,000 views. The billion-view mark was first passed by Gangnam Style in December 2012. On January 13, 2022, Pinkfong's "Baby Shark" became the first video to hit 10,000,000,000 views.
Views represent how many times a video is watched. To ensure that traffic is coming from actual humans and not scripts or other deceptive methods, YouTube has a secret algorithm to separate legitimate views from illegitimate ones, and only legitimate views are included in the view count. Specifically, to count as a legitimate view, a user must intentionally initiate the playback of the video and play at least 30 seconds of the video (or the entire video for shorter videos). Additionally, while replays count as views, there is a limit of 4 or 5 views per IP address during a 24-hour period, after which point, no further views from that IP are counted until the 24-hour period expires.
Content sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0
