YouTube celebrated much more than its birthday last month – it also revealed record viewing and uploading figures.

The video sharing community website clocked up its sixth year on the web in May - and was keen to thank its users for rising to a challenge it made in November 2010 to increase the volume of uploads. More than 48 hours of content are now uploaded to the site every minute, which marks a 37 per cent increase over the last six months and 100 per cent annually.

On a weekend in May, YouTube also clocked up three billion views in a day, a 50 per cent increase compared to 2010. This is the equivalent of nearly half of the global population watching a YouTube clip every day. The site, which is owned by Google, put its success down to the way that its users make it a “reflection of you and your world”.

“The first six years of a person’s life are incredibly important for development. The same could be said for a company. For the last six years we’ve grown and evolved in our quest to push video forward and deliver the best possible experience to you. So when will we reach 72 hours a minute, or 4 billion views a day? That’s up to you,” the company commented on its official blog.

MEC opinion: YouTube’s continuing success underlines just how important video optimisation is in the modern search landscape – especially given that videos now achieve a clickthrough rate of around 19 per cent. With faster broadband speeds and 3G technology being used more widely, along with a better mobile viewing experience offered on tablet devices, it’s highly likely that YouTube will be reporting even higher viewing and upload figures this time next year.