YouTube is looking to help creators monetize their content faster, and ensure fewer limitations and restrictions on such, with an improved process for reviewing content monetization eligibility that’ll remove the need to prompt YouTube to review uploads.
Right now, each video uploaded to YouTube is reviewed for ad suitability, with creators then getting a green, yellow or red dollar sign icon to signify whether their content has been deemed eligible for all, some or no ads.
If you feel that YouTube has got this wrong, and your content does in fact meet YouTube’s ad suitability guidelines, you can ask YouTube for a review, but YouTube’s now looking to streamline this, by sending videos that get a yellow dollar icon for a secondary check automatically.
As per YouTube:
“To improve the accuracy of our yellow icon decisions and get your videos monetizing faster, we are experimenting with automatically sending videos that receive a ‘Limited or no ads’ rating for an additional review that may be completed by a human. Additional reviews aim to improve the stability and accuracy of monetization assessments, reducing the need for appeals and providing more confidence in your video’s monetization status.”
So now, rather than relying on creators to appeal yellow badge results, YouTube will do it automatically in many cases.
YouTube says that this will expedite the review process:
“Though the process may take longer initially, at times up to 24 hours, the decisions will be more accurate. Note that experience of up to 24 hours will only apply to a minority of videos, and the aim is to get you a more accurate final decision faster, without having to appeal a decision.”
YouTube says that creators will still be able to appeal any ad restriction decisions as normal, but the aim is to provide more accurate reviews faster, by reducing its reliance on automated reviews and systematic restrictions.
Which will benefit both creators and YouTube, by ensuring more ad slots are available for more ads. It is interesting, however, that YouTube’s effectively looking to increase its manual review load, though it may also be submitting some of these secondary reviews to another automated process, providing a double-checking method to reduce challenges.
And obviously, a lot of creators challenge these reviews already, so maybe, on balance, the workload shift has been deemed to ultimately be of benefit.
And with YouTube also recently activating ad slots for a heap of videos that previously didn’t include them, it’s clearly seeking more ad opportunities, which this could help to facilitate.
Again, YouTube does note that the updated process could take a little longer, so it’s advising creators to upload their clips as “Unlisted” or “Private” earlier, in order to allow for slightly longer review times.
“Creators will receive an email notification within 24 hours once a final decision is available, and there’ll be a green, yellow or red icon next to the video in the ‘Content’ tab in Studio.”
That said, YouTube also notes that, in most cases, these reviews will take minutes, with only a small number of cases set to take a longer time.
So, more ad opportunities for creators, and more ad spots for YouTube to fill. A win-win for everyone.
Well, except for viewers who are now likely to be served more ads, but most people are pretty attuned to YouTube ads by now.
You can read more about YouTube’s updated ad suitability review process here.