YouTube Script and Retention Glossary

The words this site uses, defined in one place. Each entry says what the term means here, states what it does not mean where that distinction matters, and links to the page that covers it in full.

Script-hold index

A relative index from 0 to 100 that the analysis computes across your draft, section by section. It compares the parts of one script against each other, so a low segment carries more attention risk than the rest of that same draft. It is not a percentage of viewers and not observed retention. Delivery, editing, topic, thumbnail, and distribution all sit outside the text the check reads.

Attention-risk map

The curve that marks where a draft is most likely to lose attention, plotted across the script rather than across a published video. Each dip points at a passage you can still rewrite, which is the reason to run a check before you record. Retention-risk map is the shorter public name for the same curve. It is not a measurement of published retention.

Policy pre-flight

A pass that matches passages in your draft to categories in YouTube’s published guidelines, so a line that reads as a policy risk surfaces while it is still text. It names the categories the text resembles. It is not a YouTube decision, and it is not an approval or a monetization guarantee.

Hook

The opening of a video, roughly the first 5 to 15 seconds and one to three spoken sentences, where the viewer decides whether to stay. A hook fails when those seconds go to a greeting, a channel bumper, or a slow setup instead of a reason to keep watching.

Payoff

Any moment where the viewer receives something: an answer, a demonstration, a number, a reveal. Everything else in a script is setup, and a long stretch of setup with no payoff inside it is where a drop tends to land. The planning default used across these pages puts a concrete payoff claim inside the opening rather than the middle.

Pattern interrupt

A deliberate change in pace, tone, format, or visual presentation that resets the viewer’s attention. Pattern interrupts keep working while they stay varied. The same interrupt repeated on a fixed beat stops interrupting anything.

Audience retention

The percentage of a video that the average viewer watched. A 10-minute video at 50 percent audience retention means the average viewer watched 5 minutes. YouTube reports it in Studio alongside average view duration. It is measured from your own channel analytics after publishing, and no check of the draft can produce it.

Average percentage viewed

The share of a video the average viewer watched, expressed against that video’s full length. YouTube Studio reports it next to average view duration, and the retention brackets by video length are written in this number. Shorts can report above 100 percent because loops and replays count toward watch time.

Average view duration

The average time a viewer spent watching one video, usually written as AVD. Multiply it by views and you get watch time. It comes from your own analytics after publishing, not from a check of the draft.

Watch time

The total minutes viewers spent watching a video, which is views multiplied by average view duration. It is the number that feeds the 4,000-hour monetization threshold on the long-form route. Audience retention and click-through rate do not count toward that threshold.

Channel Scan

A free tool that reports winner and loser patterns from a channel’s own public videos, with verbatim transcript quotes. It reads public data only, and it reports the biggest leak with an estimated views cost. It does not use private retention analytics.

Audit

The full paid analysis of a draft: every flagged issue, the rewrite for it, and the reason the change works. The free check shows the biggest issue and its rewrite; the audit is the complete set across the script. It reads text only, and it does not measure published viewers.