There’s been a lot of talk lately about changes to how YouTube de-monetizes non ad-friendly content, meaning if your content isn’t “ad-friendly,” YouTube will prevent ads from appearing on those videos.
But here’s the thing: nothing has really changed except for the fact that now you can actually see when your video has been demonetized.
Prior to this change you’d have no indication within your YouTube account that a video had been deemed ineligible for monetization. Now, not only is this news clearly communicated to the content owner, but YouTube has also implemented a review process if you think your video has been demonetized in error.
What kind of YouTube content is NOT ad-friendly?
Videos containing the following elements have a high probability of being demonetized:
- Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
- Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
- Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
- Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
- Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
Here’s what YouTube says about the changes
Here are the changes related to videos that are demonetized due to advertiser-friendly content concerns:
1. We’ll change the $ icon in Video Manager to yellow with the hover message “Not advertiser-friendly. Request manual review” to make it more clear when a video is demonetized.
2. We’ll send you an email notifying you if a video is demonetized due to advertiser-friendly content concerns. Note that demonetization decisions may not happen immediately, so a video may be monetized for a period of time after it is uploaded and then become demonetized.
3. You can click on the yellow $ icon next to any video that is demonetized due to advertiser-friendly content concerns in Video Manager to request an appeal by human reviewers. You will be notified once a decision is made on the appeal, and if it is successful, your video will immediately be monetized again and have a green $ icon in Video Manager.
Questions about YouTube’s ad-friendly guidelines? Check out more info HERE.
Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.