YouTube Hack Helped Post Malone's 'Rockstar' Go Number 1

After sitting one spot behind Cardi B's 'Bodak Yellow' for three weeks, the Post Malone featuring 21 Savage track 'Rockstar' has gone number one on the Billboard 200.

The sales strength 'Rockstar' is in the streaming; this is actually the third week it's had the most streams in the land.

Some of that streaming success has to do with a weird YouTube hack Post's label Republic Records employed.

The label put a 3:38 second (the length of the song) loop of the 'Rockstar''s chorus on their YouTube page. The loop has been viewed over 40 million times -- or more than a million times a day since the song dropped.

Republic doesn't have an official proper version of 'Rockstar' on YouTube. Instead, there are links on the looped version which go to all of the other streaming services, like Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple.

It was recently announced that Billboard would be starting to count YouTube spins on their charts. According to a source who spoke to The Fader, a view of  'Rockstar's loop video would count on the charts in the same way that a view on a remix of an instrumental track would.

So it would seem that Republic has figured out a way to put 'Rockstar' on YouTube without really putting it on the completely free service.

It could be a taste of things to come.

[Related: Billboard is about to make a big change to its charts.]