Youtube 'Limited Ad' Madness

The Algorithm of Doom

This isn't all Youtube's fault. They had to do something. Looks like it was a bit rushed though and the end result is chaos, worry and uncertainty.

What am I talking about? 

Advertisers have been leaving the Youtube site as some have found their adverts appearing on Videos they do not want to be associated with. The content within that video they do not want linked to their products or appear to be endorsing in any way. These videos could contain terrorism, violence, crime, swearing or other unsavoury behaviour. 

Well, that's fair enough. Advertisers have to protect their brand. If you're the manufacturer of Happy Biscuits, you don't want your adverts appearing on a video of someone shouting racist hate speech or being cruel to puppies.

Youtube had to address this to stop the loss of important Ad revenue. Of course, they would not have the resources to check every video individually. That would take millions of operators working round the clock. So... they developed an Algorithm to check them all.

An Algorithm.

And that's where the huge problem starts for Youtube video creators who have their videos monetised. The Algorithm is far far from perfect. It's way too aggressive. Overnight genuine creators were getting large numbers of their videos wrongly deemed unsuitable for ad revenue with the status added, Limited or No Ads. 

You can appeal.... but only if your video has over 1000 views in the last 7 days. That's the knockout punch. Small and medium size creators will not have that so cannot appeal wrong decisions at all.

Admittedly this algorithm seems to have improved over the last couple of days, but it's a worrying position to be in if you're looking to grow your channel and can see obstacles being thrown in front of you blocking the path.

In terms of revenue to keep a growing Channel going on it's own, it's increasing becoming the reality that a creator cannot rely on Youtube Ad revenue alone.  Below are my recent thoughts.

 
Hopefully this Algorithm will continue to improve to benefit the Youtube commnunity. At the moment, it's particularly messy, random and unpredictable.

If you haven't already, please show your support by subscribing to my Youtube channel njenkin or following on VIDME.

Many thanks!

Nick :o)

VIDME - An alternative to Youtube?

Additional opportunities for smaller content creators?

Since the reboot of my gaming channel on Youtube called njenkin around 4 years ago, growth has been steady, but not spectacular. The reason being, I think, the colossal volume of videos being uploaded every second on the site across the globe makes it very difficult to be found. 

I only monetised the Channel after 3 and a half years as I wanted to be certain I had something of quality to offer the viewer and could do it consistently. This I feel I have done and can continue to do so. However, for any Youtube Channel to take that next epic leap forward to professionalism it has to be able to generate enough ad revenue to stand on its own two feet. Looking at the Stats, although gradually increasing, I can see it's going to be very difficult to survive from Youtube Ad revenue alone in the short term unless something incredible were to happen.  A lot of smaller and increasingly medium to large Youtube channels are also feeling the same way.

So what's the answer? Give up?

No!

It's important to make videos for fun if you're passionate about the subject matter. I recently stumbled across a new Video site called VIDME. Founded in 2014, it's much smaller than YouTube, but recently started to offer monetisation opportunities.

I've only put up one video on it so far to test the water. Still finding my feet with it, but the site reminds me a lot of how Youtube used to be before it were acquired by Google. Seems initially more friendly to the smaller creator with the potential for a lot of growth. Whether this will be the case, it's impossible to predict, but I thought it would be worth a test run to see what happens.

In order to monetise content, a member needs to have 50 Followers. At time of writing this blog, I have zero, but the first video was only put up today. Hopefully we'll get there soon so I can give this a proper trial.

At the end of the day, the site is free and smaller channels have got nothing to lose. Below is my first video on the site.

https://vid.me/CbDVc

 
If you get a chance, please take a look. If you sign up on VIDME, then be sure to give me a Follow. It all helps !!  This doesn't mean I'm suddenly leaving Youtube. Should be there for the foreseeable future.

Nick :o)