Ever get a link to a YouTube video that is clearly going viral but for some reason only shows 301 views? As it turns out, viral videos almost always freeze at this number for anywhere from a few hours to a full day before going on to reflect their true view count. To find an explanation for this curious phenomenon, YouTube user Numberphile tracked down a member of YouTube's internal analytics team. He discovered that the secret of 301 dates back to the earliest days of the Internet's favorite video site, and is directly linked to the mysterious formula for calculating what does or does not count as a view. Get the full story above.

[via Gizmodo]