If you’ve been hanging around the “vlogosphere” for the last couple of weeks, you will have noticed a bunch of YouTube accounts getting terminated or suspended. And the strange, and slightly scary thing about it is that a lot of them seems to have been terminated for no good reason… as far as we can tell from the YouTube Community Guidlines.
Recently, I had an interview with Dave Jenyns, who also got his account terminated, but managed to get it back again. It was quite an ordeal, but he managed to get his channel back again after some fast and clever actions.
Make sure you also check out David’s website here (he’s got some excellent information on SEO):
A couple of weeks, I got a phone call from a good friend of mine, David Jenyns. It was on a Sunday morning. He said, “Gideon, YouTube has terminated my YouTube channel.”
He was very shocked. Of course, he had a bunch of videos on his channel. Really useful videos; he was helping his followers in a particular niche.
David was not the only person who got his account terminated. Another really successful blogger (you may know him), Darren Rowse, also got his account — can’t remember if it was terminated or suspended. In other words, he can’t use his account for six months.
This was a big deal! This was a very big deal because both of these people are very trustworthy and the kind of people that you would really take to war with you. It’s just so incredible that they lost their YouTube accounts. It was kind of unbelievable!
So what happened next was that Darren decided to create an open letter to YouTube. He wrote this wonderful letter to YouTube and posted it on his blog at ProBlogger.net. Within twelve hours, he got his YouTube account back together again.
David wasn’t so lucky. He had to do quite a bit more work. Eventually, he also did get his account back. It took him about 48 hours or maybe three days to get his account back.
For both of these accounts, as I said before, they are incredibly trustworthy people. They had really valuable content. They were definitely not breaking any community guidelines on YouTube.
So, why did their accounts get terminated? And do you have the risk of getting your account or your YouTube channel terminated as well?
This is a real risk. Unfortunately, with YouTube and other video sharing sites and things like Facebook — because you don’t own it, it can be taken away from you without notice.
That’s the other thing — both David and Darren’s accounts got terminated without much notice at all. Apparently, there was a message sent to them but very soon after, it was terminated. They didn’t even have the time or chance to correct anything that they might have done wrong.
As I said, this could happen to you as well. Inside this video, I want to share with you some things you can do to help you prevent that from happening. But if it does happen, I want to give you some tips for making sure that you’re going to be okay in the unlikely event that your YouTube account will get suspended.
The bottom line for me is that, on YouTube you need to make sure that you play YouTube’s game.
YouTube’s game is to provide valuable content to the people who come and visit the YouTube community. So that’s really important. You need to make sure that you provide high value content to the YouTube community.
This is little bit of a gray area because sometimes you might think you’re providing valuable content to the YouTube community but YouTube may not think that it’s above board.
There are some topics that YouTube and Google don’t particularly like. One that is a huge one that they don’t seem to like much is the whole “make money online” niche. There are other ones too but it’s really hard to get data on this or to get a real picture on this because YouTube and Google are not really forthcoming with this information.
If you’re watching this, YouTube, it would be wonderful to get feedback from you and to know exactly what it is that you want, or at least what you don’t want.
Inside YouTube’s guidelines, they do have some information on the kind of content that’s not allowed. But in both Darren and David’s cases, their accounts got terminated for reasons that seemed a little bit strange. For both of them, they had the keywords “how to make money online” or “make money online” in the title of their videos.
We can’t tell for sure, but those keyword phrases seem to be the thing that both those two accounts have in common why they got terminated. So I’m not sure; nobody, other than YouTube and Google, will be able to say why their accounts got terminated — whether it was the “make money online” keyword phrase that triggered something and got their accounts terminated.
This is a great thing that YouTube is doing. People are losing their accounts, sometimes unfairly. But in general, I think what YouTube is trying to do is do a bit of a cleanup process. There’s just so much junk on YouTube and Google so I think they’re actually doing a good thing here to try to clean up a bit.
And yes, there are “make money online” videos on YouTube that are actually scams. But both Darren and David are certainly not in that category.
It brings a question here: What do you need to do to make sure that your account does not get terminated?
I mentioned creating high value content.
I’ve mentioned the keyword phrase “make money online.” Stay away from that. Please do not use that in your title. We can’t tell a hundred percent for sure that that is the thing that got it triggered because when you do a search for “make money online” on YouTube, there are still a bunch of videos that are coming up.
Chances are that YouTube has gone through the process to get rid of those ones. So stay away from those keywords.
This almost goes without saying, but don’t upload dodgy stuff onto YouTube. Upload things that the YouTube community would want to watch. That’s why it’s important for you to get involved and to get to know the YouTube community.
Anything that is of some black hat strategies; dodgy scammy sort of stuff; and spammy sort of things . Just uploading a bunch of videos and putting links on your description just so that you can get a link back to your website like spamming kind of way — not the way we normally provide a really great content and then have a link back to your site, that’s fine.
Doing dodgy stuff on YouTube, keyword stuffing your tags, getting fake views, using software to automate friend-adding — all these sort of automatic things – stay away from them. I’ve made it a point to stay away from those things on my channel. I’ve done my best to keep it as clean as I can and to always provide value.
So, provide value, watch your titles, don’t use spammy things, don’t use any automated software to try to beat the system. Play by the rules of YouTube. That is really the bottom line – play by the rules of YouTube.
There are some things you can do. There’s probably a few other things you need to watch out for. I recommend you Google a little bit and research for yourself. It’s hard to find clear answers because as I say YouTube and Google are unfortunately not forthcoming with that information. So do a bit of your own research, do your own due diligence.
The other thing I want to quickly mention is, what do you do in the case that you do get terminated? What should you do now to help you make sure that you’re prepared for something, in case it does happen?
Something that I recommend and I’ve been recommending for a couple of years is to always back up your videos on a service like Amazon S3. There are other services as well. I’ll reveal something to you within the next few months that I’m working on, I can’t say too much more. But Amazon S3 is currently what I’m using for backing up all my videos.
If in the case that my account might get terminated or suspended, I can go back to those videos and quickly get them back onto my site again without too much hassle. So have a back up strategy.
The other thing you can do is to always, when you upload your video to YouTube, to also upload that same video to another video sharing sites like Viddler, Vimeo, Daily Motion; there’s a whole bunch. So that if your YouTube account goes down, you could quickly grab the embed code from these other video sharing sites and just get the onto your own site without any hassle.
In saying that though, once again, even for the other video sharing sites, most of them will have the same standards as YouTube, maybe even tighter. For example, site like blip.tv, they’re incredibly tight. You can’t upload any kind of commercial content, anything that is promoting anything. As soon as you do that, they’ll just delete your account without notice. And really, there’s no way of getting it back.
This happened to me. I accidentally uploaded what i thought was a good high quality, good value video but I had a little bit of a pitch at the end and they deemed that as a commercial video. My whole account got deleted; my account of three to four years I think it was.
So watch out even for the other channels. Once again, it just comes back to making sure that you provide value and that you stick to the guidelines for this video-sharing sites.
Let’s face it, they’re giving it to us for free. It’s a privilege to be able to use it. We can’t complain so we need to really stick to the rules of these services that we use. Don’t try to beat the system.
I still think the best marketing approach is just to play the game and play by the rules. Provide massive value and then value will be returned to you in some way or form.
There you go… I’ve also had an interview with Dave Jenyns to sort of run over what actually happened and to go in bit more detail what you can do to stay safe on YouTube. It’s almost like a bit of a survival guide on YouTube.
I’ll list that interview below the video in my blog at GideonShalwick.com. If you’re watching this from YouTube, just go to my blog, there’ll be a link to that interview below this video. Go and watch it; listen to it; it’s about an hour long.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’d love to hear a little bit of a discussion about this because obviously it’s going to affect you likely. It may not, but it could. I’d love to hear your thoughts about using YouTube and about using other services; about the future of using YouTube and what we should do to make sure we stay within the guidelines of YouTube.
Please leave your comment below, whether on YouTube, on my blog or on Facebook, it doesn’t matter. Spread this video. I’d love to open this up for more discussion… Get the discussion going so that we can all learn from this experience.
That’s all I wanted to say. Go ahead and leave your comment. I’d love to hear from you. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Typical Google arrogance. My YouTube account wasn’t terminated, but my Adwords account got terminated last year and it happened the same way.
Yeah I am not sure which is worse… getting your Adwords account terminated or your YouTube channel!
Both are pretty nasty!
Gideon
The bad thing when your AdWords account got terminated is that you never ever allowed to create a new one. Never ever. The disturbing thing is that if you start a totally different business in the future you will not be able to use AdWords for promotions.
It happened to me as well and there is nothing you can do about that. They don’t give you a reason and if you react on their automated message a contact-from-circle-jerk starts.
The nastiest thing was the loss of income of a couple of hundred bucks each month. It felt a bit like being fired for no reason.
Didn’t know Google can terminate our accounts that easily.
Don’t they atleast inform your or warn you?
Nope – no warnings in most cases it seems.
Although on YouTube, you are supposed to get three “strikes” before you’re out. Unless of course they think you have done something bad enough to get terminated without notice.
Gideon
I haven’t had my YouTube account terminated, but I wanted to make sure that I do things in the right way, so it will not happen. It seems like it is easier to play by the rules, but it’s good to know that there are ways to redeem your YouTube account if it does get terminated.
Hi Gideon
This seems to be a growing problem. I actually had my account deleted a couple of weeks ago too, and as far as I can see it was because I had the word “scam” in the title. I always take great care in making sure that my videos stay within the community guidelines, and still believe that this video was too.
After 3 emails to youtube, I got the same default response back with no explanation whatsoever. I still haven’t got my account back and I am stumped as to where to go from here.
Many of my videos are posted on my blog via EVP now, but some of the older ones have been lost forever
(my fault I know!)
I will listen to the interview above to see if I can get some tips to help get it back!!
Cheers
Paul
Hey Paul
I know of SEVERAL YouTubers who have been able to get their accounts back after getting “terminated” – Dave and Darren being two of them.
So, there is definitely hope for you!
All the best!
Gideon
Thanks Gideon! This is really good to know.
It seems a little bit like YT is warning ‘Stay out of the Make Money On-line Niche’. And let’s face it there are so many people busy in that niche where you can tell that they never made a dime by themselves. The reason for this in my opinion is that many people think that this is the only niche that actually makes money.
I’m glad that I never considered entering this niche. We have to emphasize that every niche that is valuable off-line can be valuable on-line. In fact we have to stop to just think on-line in terms of the magic word. You’re in a niche. Period. See the on-line presence as an amplifier of it and not at the sole spirit of your passion or business.
When it comes to YT and how they handle all this I think it really shows that if a company or a person grows to a point where they don’t need to be friendly anymore the true characters comes to the surface. However, it’s their living room and we all are guests, so we should behave like guests and putting our feet on the table and spit on the floor.
Of course it’s a very good idea to have a backup plan and I honestly have to say that I was a little nonchalant with this until today.
Thanks for the video,
Mario
EDIT for my former comment:
Of course I mean: and NOT putting our feet on the table and spit on the floor.
Hi Gideon,
After reading some information about this topic on another website, I thought I’d better go sign up for YouTube’s revenue sharing program.
The theory being YouTube would be less likely to terminate videos which where making money for them.
One of my videos the YouTube team chose to inspect, contained an audio tack of “royalty free” music purchased from a company named DigitalJuice over 8 years ago.
YouTube contacted me wanting PROOF the music was royalty free and that I owned the legal rights to use it.
They want legal documents, the composer’s name, the name of the music, the date it was composed, links to the music on Digital Juice’s product website and the requirements go on and on.
They also told me if I can NOT produce this proof, they consider me a violator of their terms of use policy.
They added… as a violator my videos may very well be REMOVED from YouTubes website.
Since Digital Juice no longer carries this music, I can’t prove anything.
Because of my ignorance, I feel I just set myself up to get terminated.
A sizable percentage of my customers are acquired from having my videos visible on YouTube.
Most of my videos are very educational and thousands of people have subscribed to my channel.
I wish I had left well enough alone.
Larry T.
Yeah I have seen that YT is now tightening up big time on copyright for music tracks and images as well. They do make it very interesting now!
Gideon
Thanks Gideon, I appreciate your videos — always great and useful content…
Paul
Great information Gideon, as always. I have received a strike from YouTube once before because I included a video with a music introduction. They said that the inclusion of the music belonging to someone else violated their terms. They pulled the video, but did not violate my account. So, now I make sure it’s all “original” music or a quick “mix” they cannot link to anything or anyone else. According to YouTube, I am entitled to 3 strikes before termination. In my case, I keep the original of all my videos and can quickly put it on my own site(s) using Moyea, which is actually a great program without limits.
I hope not to hear too much of this termination business. I can understand it in some cases, but at least give people a chance to make corrections or pull their own videos to save termination of their account.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you Gideon for making the effort to provide this info to our community for free. Not like someone in the warrior forum doing a wso on the banning of pay pal accounts. Yes I think you are correct about anything to do with make money phrase I went into my account and made sure i removed any of those phrases in my videos. The problem with the people who have had their account for years and lots of videos in it you are not going to remember what tags or titles you have used.
I am sure Youtube just have a algorithuim that just randomly goes through and deletes accounts just to make more room in their service. I think it will keep going on as there is so many news videos uploaded on a daily basis. Something has to give somewhere.
Cheers Bruce
The phrase “make money online” certainly seems to have triggered something off… although we really can’t tell for sure. There are many other theories running around as well – as you can tell from the comments here so far
I was a bit surprised to see today that a channel called MrPregnant got terminated as well after being with YouTube right from the beginning. He managed to get it back again, but he was pretty upset… even to the point of crying like a baby on one of his videos!
But yeah… YT has been terminating accounts for years now… nothing too new, but there definitely seems to be a bit of a spike right now…
Gideon
I guess I won’t be calling my videos “how to make money on-line” anymore.
Yeah better to stay safe on this one Indie!
Gideon
Good advice, Gideon. Even if you obey the guidelines, you’re still not safe. That’s why it’s good to have your videos uploaded to multiple outlets online.
I’ve had 3 channels deleted since 2006…. legitimate marketing information that helped people make a lot of money. It’s like a piece of history totally vanished. All of the vSEO, top rankings, feedback erased.
Fortunately, I was building an email list which is the one thing that Google or YouTube cannot take away.
Hey Matthew
Yeah you’ve pointed out something really critical – the importance of building your own list (asset), so that if something does go haywire, you still keep your asset!
Sorry to hear you lost your account. Must have been so frustrating for you!
Gideon
Wow, i had no idea this was going on w/ youtube. Thank you!! If nothing else, i think staying away from those keywords will be very helpful. I’d rather not get in a battle with youtube over re-instating my account
Thanks Gideon!!
Scary.
I must admit, I have no back-up strategy.
Thanks, Gideon, for some good common sense advice. One thing I also wonder about is our custom YouTube backgrounds. If YouTube is doing a culling mission, they may start by looking at the channel. Obviously we want to portray a professional appearance, but we also need to keep in mind that very narrow line between education and solicitation.
Hey Steven
It seems a bit of a far stretch to think YT will start looking at people’s backgrounds. I guess it’s not impossible, but just imagine the workforce that would be required to check the backgrounds of more than 1 billion accounts!
Staggering when you think about it…
Gideon
Well, on the face of it, that would seem impossible, unless the words being used are consistent with the images. Text is easier for Google to manage
I can imagine bots running around making snap decisions based on what they read. Of course that hasn’t happened yet, and the random nature of this culling perhaps argues against that.
So it’s a bit maddening that they won’t tell anyone what they want…
So internet marketers are being hated everywhere lately.
PPC campaigns on MLM, making money, etc.
Well it all started with the Google Panda.
Then it went no social media on ClickBank, no affiliate marketing in MailChimp, no making money on Facebook Ads, no get rich quick programs in AdWords.
Now is YouTube(Google) on making money online or work from home programs.
It was only natural to see this was coming to an end sooner or later, because there is simply so much of the same thing out there.
No wonder why every new training on marketing program teaches you how to profit WITHOUT being on the making money online niche.
I know a few that are battling YT right now for getting their accounts restored with 2 years worth of video content and hard work put into it.
Same procedures: no prior warning, no explanation, same email answer over and over and that’s it.
He created a Facebook group about it but we all know that hardly does achieve anything when we’re talking about a giant.
If people were confused as to when they should start targeting other niches, I believe this is actually the best time ever.
We don’t need any more in your face moves, we already understood!
Great video and thanks for sharing Gideon.
Sergio
Hey Sergio
That’s the thing – I think this actually opens up a HUGE opportunity for all those other niches to be dominated.
I reckon the opportunity is rather big – we just have to grasp it in a way that is acceptable to YouTube
Gideon
Thanks for the tips!
Thanks Gideon… never thought about a backup plan, great info … will get my vids sorted asap… Cheers Andrew
Thanks for this Gideon.
Unfortunately for those of us who thought we were playing by the rules, there wasn’t too much here re tips on how to reinstate our accounts, other than your suggestion re using amazon s3 for backup.
I was a YouTube partner and had a simple 2 minute video explaining how affiliate marketing works. I get one “strike” email, and bam my account is shut down.
That video had over 36,000 views, lots of likes, and tons of happy comments thanking me for simplifying the concept. Now my video is gone, but two stolen copies of it are still on YouTube and I can’t do much about it (see link below).
I admit affiliate marketing is about making money – actually ALL marketing is about making money. Google is in the same business: they have their own affiliate network AND pay for clicks via adsense. In fact by being a YouTube partner you are basically an affiliate for Google, sharing the revenue paid by advertisers.
But it seems trying to educate people about affiliate marketing is against community guidelines, and YouTube treats its partners with little respect.
I blogged about my case here, and as of today am still stuck with NO response from YouTube.
http://www.affiliate-software-review.com/asrblog/this-youtube-break-up-hurts
This whole change is actually a good for us because it will create a higher barrier of entry for internet marketers. Survival of the fittest.
If a large chunk of someones business is dependent on a FREE platform such as Youtube, then Google already owns 51% of your company and you can be tossed out on your A#$ at anytime.
You have to pay to play..nothing is FREE.
Did you listen to the interview between Dave and I? We talk about how to get your channel back – and we also list the resources you can use.
No guarantees you’ll get you channel back though – but it’s worth a shot!
Gideon
Gideon,
Good info. Thanks…BTW, did you change your background color in your video from white to light gray?
Just use some less exposure for the background – experimenting a bit – what do you think?
Gideon
I think it looks better Gideon, the other videos looks like you’re talking to us from Heaven lol
Ah cool! Great to hear!
Gideon
Great video Gideon
Hi Gideon
Thank you for sharing with us I had a mentor a few years ago who had their channel terminated and she was very upset actually devastated as she had not backed up her videos or uploaded them to other sites I have to admit I still need to do this myself.
I shall visit your web page to see all the details.
Thank you
Vanda -Lynn
Hi Gideon…
Great info and advice, as always. I remember you also mentioning this quite early on, in your Rapid Video Blogging course… warning about the fact that you do NOT own your YouTube account so have another service ready in a pinch.
I use YouTube for my “free” how-to videos, embedding them on my site (just for the added YouTube traffic), but also use Amazon S3 for my “private” member-only videos. If my YT account went down, it wouldn’t take much to roll all my stuff over to Amazon and keep going…. although I’d miss the traffic that YT brings.
I also have multiple YT accounts, but only use one on a regular basis. If I had to, I could always switch to a backup YT account.
Thanks again for your great video blogs and all the stuff I’ve learned from your courses… John Lortz
Hey John
Yeah, I’ve been saying these things for quite some time now. One thing I think we should all watch out for though, is not to throw the baby out with the bath water…
In other words, YouTube is STILL an amazing place for getting traffic – but it should not be used as a video hosting site. There are other much better alternatives for that.
Great to hear from you again!
Gideon
Great video Gideon. It was nice of you to throw light on these things at a time where people are really confused about Youtube.
Many people think they are uploading great content to youtube and it will help the community. But again it might not be valuable content for Youtube. So we need to play by their rules and be thankful to them that we are getting such an awesome tool to use for free.
This is again a wake up call for all the online entrepreneurs to make sure they are going to be clean and will not attempt to upload terms violating content to any video sharing and social media sites. It is a good sign in one way and puts everybody on their feet to produce and upload great content.
Thank you making us aware of the Youtube saga Gideon. I hope the nobody loses their account. All the best
Hey Prajwal
The hardest thing for me is that it’s so hard to know exactly where YouTube is drawing the line with many topics.
If YouTube could become crystal clear on what exactly is allowed and what is not allowed, it would make it a lot easier in my view.
Gideon
I don’t have much to say besides, that’s phucked up! I did however share this vid on my FB to help get the word out. peace
I had an account deleted from Youtube as well and I did not have “how to make money online” anywhere in the videos. Of course the channel was only “favorited” videos on it. Just thought I would enter my two cents.
@TheUSaveMoving thanks for that extra info – yeah there seems to be a number of different things people got their accounts terminated for. It’s really a bit of a mystery to know for sure why accounts are getting terminated. Lets hope we get some clear directions from YT and G.
So basically no selling on youtube!
Hey fas
No, I don’t think that is the message I was trying to convey. It depends on how you do it.
There is a difference between selling something tastefully, and spamming your YouTube channel.
But this may be a topic for another video
Gideon
@LetITPay Hey Vanda-Lynn – I have just added the link to my blog page that lists the resources we used to help David get his account back, and also the interview with David. Backing up is not a bad idea
Exactly, so why are you using Facebook for your comments? It’s not an “unlikely event” if you’ve been on the web a while. This is how it goes. Use your dot-com.
I use Facebook comments for the same reason as I use YouTube – to help drive traffic to my .com site so that I can build my own list and my own asset.
This goes for any other traffic generation strategy I employ… which is more than just the 2 mentioned above
Gideon
Yes, I heard many of my youtuber friends with the same experience, until now they have no idea why their account have been suspended. I will share this video, it is very important. Also, right now I will watch the interview. Thanks a lot again for this very very important message!!!
I’m new to online Marketing, but even I know hosting promotional type videos on YouTube is a mistake.
If you wouldn’t host your blog on a free platform like LiveJournal.com, then you shouldnt host your videos on a free platform like Youtube because you arnt in control.
Its worth the investment to host all the videos yourself. Most people are using Youtube because they want a high quality authority link pointing back to there website SEO reasons. Google/Youtube knows this, and that’s not the type of users they want on Youtube.
Hey Kent
I still think it’s worth using YouTube as a traffic generation strategy – you would be foolish not to use a service that has over a billion subscribers and who get over 3 billion views a day.
And yes I agree to not use YouTube as a video hosting service as such. But more as a traffic generation strategy.
Gideon
Very interesting video and very insightful. I deleted almost 200 videos from my channel because they were all over the place topic-wise but I kinda forgot how empty my channel was afterwards.
On the ‘They are giving it to you for free’ idea I really gotta disagree though. It the users that are providing content for free but that’s just my view on the world
))
Aloha Gideon, gosh this is becoming a common discussion online. I heard one person say that Youtube are leaving alone spammy video channels and going for the money making ones. I suppose they are monopolizing this market or trying to, can’t say. It is a free service and you’re right we can’t complain but respect it. Glad I came by and thanks for sharing! Mahalo, Lanikee.com
Hey Lanikee
Yeah no one seems to be quite sure what is going on. There certainly is a lot of chatter going on at the moment.
We are living in very interesting and exciting times – that is for sure!
Gideon
@svinehunden Yeah I guess YT needs us (the users) to upload valuable content for them to be valuable in turn. Although, we would not be able to upload anything to YT if they did not exist
. You are right though, it cuts both ways, and that’s why I think YT and her users must treat each other with great respect 
Hi Gideon – Steve Grace here. A great video with many useful tips about Youtube. I`ll help spread your views as per my community colleague Vanda (above).
@Netmark52 Thank you SO much! Much appreciated!
video too long
i totally hear ya re “abiding by youtube’s rules” … they r a very gracious n cool site and YAY 4 them 4 weeding out the cheesy gigs… we r all so bombarded with so much commercialism its overwhelming n exhausting …. i manage many groups on FB and constantly ask folks to cut their commercialism back cos of “sales overkill” …. thanks 4 clarifying all that gideon, and for being the “youtube budgie” sounding the alert when the signs r subtle… bless yer cotton socks bro
shared.
@PaulHamon legend.
I think just being genuine is a good thing to avoid problems.
In the end it’s all our fault that Google and the companies it had acquired (like Youtube) has become that gigantic. We can state without exaggeration that Google and a few other players own the Internet. Of course I know that it is not easy not to like Google.
The problem that scares me here is, however, that there is a huge danger of censorship. Google can take domains (entire companies) out of the search results and it’s like they have fallen off of the planets surface.
Of course it’s a good thing to ban scam and protect us but there is a very thin line between over protecting and censoring. Better said deciding what we may and may not find on the Internet.
I really hope that there will be another player standing up on all platforms who will at least take over half of the power. It seems impossible but it’s not. In the beginning Google was a small David as well.
Take care and have a good one,
Mario
Hey Mario
You bring up a very interesting point about protecting and censorship – that is currently a huge discussion here in Australia, because they want to censor the internet here too!
Gideon
oh no, you said (upload your videos to vimeo too). Isn’t that automatic suspension? hehe.
I had my Adwords account suspended indefinitely a few years ago while I was overseas. No warning email and I am still not sure why – perhaps my account was even hacked into. I have written several emails and only a reply to the first which says there is nothing that can be done. Luckily I am now focusing on my YouTube channel which is going great but I know what it is like! Thanks Gideon
Thanks for sharing this helpful information. I’ve been very slack with backing up my videos, but from hear own out, I will be backing up everything. The key is to provide value. I’m trying. Thanks again!
Nice video, but i must say that these days even if you flag a video 3,4 times with 3,4 different accounts it will get removed by Youtube. No matter how old that video is and how much views and rating he got. Also there are alot of Flagger bots these days. Marketers and Affiliates flagging others videos to get ranked higher. We should report such bots to youtube team so that they can help us. I know 5,6 websites who sell bots for flagging purpose.
Crazy…. I remember Darren Rowse’s YouTube account got shut down as well but his was back up within 24 to 48 hours. At the end of the day we are playing on THEIR terms. It is THEIR property and THEY create the rules (but fail to really say why they do what they do.)
As Fred Wilson said a few weeks ago, “Don’t be a Google bitch, don’t be a Facebook Bitch, and don’t be a Twitter Bitch.” Might we add YouTube to the mix? Just saying diversification of traffic matters …
The interview was at TechCrunch’s disrupt conference a few weeks ago
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/fred-wilson-be-your-own-bitch/
Dan
@BetterBizIdeas
I think you nailed it when you said “diversification of traffic matters”!
Gideon
Hello.
I am just now in the process of tryin g to learn the IM Business and what would be best for me, so I really appreciate this video. It has given me info to avoid making a Big mistake before I even get started.
Thank you,
Robert
Hey Robert
As I said earlier – don’t make the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water… YouTube is STILL a great resource and tool for helping your business grow. We just have to become more savvy at using it properly now, which actually means more opportunity for legit business owners, cos that’s what we do in any case
Gideon
Great video gideon .
Are you standing in front o your webcam or camcorder?
is someone recording for u?
GREAT quaify vdieos you do
Hey Jackie
I am standing in front of my Canon 60D camera on a tripod, with a remote control in my hand.
It’s just me and the camera… and the white screen
Gideon
Gideon, you’re barking up the wrong tree, how do I know? Go to Youtube and search “How to make money online”, 31.100 results. Channels with 4 or more years, and less too. But the real issue here is what ucp43 is saying, FLAGGER BOTS, how hard can it be to get a couple of bots going and hitting your competitors channels? It can even be some kid just for fun and to cause disruption, or someone seeking to further his political/religious/whacko agenda. I think the only backup really needed is ANOTHER (or several) youtube channel with a different user, and the SAME videos, but all marked private. If one channel gets hit, switch to the other, make the videos public, and BINGO, you’re up and going in no time. Having the videos in S3 as a last resource backup is not a bad idea either. I’ve actually protested some really spammy videos with not too many views, and have seen them removed within a couple of hours, so there you have it. Youtube must have some minimum number of flags per every 1000 views and years of a channel to get any channel banned. Bots can get past that threshold quite easily. Maybe Youtube only LOWERED the threshold recently…
Hey Danny – seems like you did not watch my whole video, cos I did talk about what you mention in your 2nd sentence
The bot thing man… that’s just crazy! Interesting what you are saying about how YouTube may have lowered their threshold… seems quite a likely scenario actually!
What’s even more crazy is that we as users can never really tell 100% for sure what is going on, but we can make educated guesses based on the results we are seeing.
I have a few other theories as well, but have decided not to talk about them yet until the dust settles a bit…
Thanks for your input!
Gideon
Think about it, it only SEEMS like they are aiming at the “make money online” niche because that is the most competitive and cutthroat niche, where it is more likely that you will find wrongdoing competitors. Same thing happens with adsense, somebody seeking to damage competitors can easily just go to a website and start clicking on google ads and most probably provoke that adsense account to be terminated. How can Google ever know it is someone seeking to cause damage? And they will terminate your account without any notice or explanation, sound familiar?
The AdSense part here is not entirely true. As you know the opposite is AdWords, this is where the ads are coming from that appear via AdSense on sites and in YT-video’s.
To protect their advertisers Google handles click corrections. If somebody clicks several times on an ad and shows weird behavior (they catch the IP address) the advertiser will only have to pay for one click and not for example 100. Even if somebody clicks on an ad beside of above the search result different times whilst switching between Google and the advertisers landing page, Google will handle a click correction.
This has as a side effect that they can also see if somebody tries to sabotage someones AdSense account. Most of this works by catching the IP. If the account owner clicks on his own Adsense Google compares for example the IP address with the one the account owner has checked his statistics. If they see that the account holder clicks his own Adsense the curtain falls.
I didn’t mention Adwords, I’m not talking about Adwords (and they have their own problems, and also get terminated pretty easily but for different reasons), and IP’s can be changed via proxys, VPNs, or Virtual Assistants. I didn’t want to go into details about it. It is actually so simple that if Google limited their closing of accounts to EXCLUSIVELY shutting down the account if the account holder clicks his own Adsense ads WITH HIS OWN IP, they wouldn’t shut anyone up. It is pretty STUPID to try to spice up Adsense income by using your own IP. And actually it would be A GREATER STUPIDITY by Google’s part to allow any “misbehaving” Adsense account to go on indefinitely. How do they define misbehaving? Well, as a matter of fact, MANY Adsense owners report that their accounts have been terminated just because their Click Through Rate goes above a certain level (and it usually is pretty low), THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IPs. It is definitely NOT very hard for a malicious party to have pretty much any Adsense account terminated at will, and that was my point…
Thank you so much for this info Gideon, this is very concerning. I’m curious, do you think they will monitor audio in your videos? If you were to say any of those money related key phrases do you think they will shut your account down as well?
Nothing strange about this. YouTube is owned by Google. Google started as two guys in a dorm creating something really cool. Google is now a blood-sucking entity ruled by sewer trolls. Sewer trolls that leave the ability to cancel your YouTube and Adsense accounts to $5/hr Indians and Pakis armed with a handful of keywords and a limited use of English.
It is interesting that this post answered 2 of the questions that I had on Lesson 3 of your video hub course.
I’ve always been frustrated that people will move into any arena and start using spammy tactics to “dominate” and it reflects badly on anyone who is in the same niche. And too many people follow suit because, unfortunately, the spammy stuff works. That’s why we still get spam emails. The ROI is fantastic.
It would be nice if Google, YouTube et al would let people know what they are doing. I know that they don’t have to since they own the playing field, but a warning would be so much better.
I saw a comment from MarginalMan in the facebook section above, and I believe he is not understanding what you mean by quality content. There are tons of crappy video quality posts that are popular as he mentions. But these are popular because the content is quality (i.e. what people want to watch). They’re entertaining, informative, etc. You can have high video quality clips that are not quality content and that is what YouTube is targeting.
The ultimate consumer experience is what YouTube has to provide. It’s how they make their money.
Cant agree with you more Bill!
Thanks for your support!
Gideon
Bill,
I agree with a lot of what you say, but to add that popularity is the sole arbiter of quality may be overstating it a bit. There are a lot of niches that do not have millions of potential viewers but feature high quality and high value content videos.
If all videos with low view counts were to be dumped off of YouTube, it would cease to be a relevant website. I just don’t see the logic in it. For anyone.
Hi Steven. I think that for YouTube, the view count is only part of the equation. Ultimately, they’re trying to measure viewer satisfaction and they probably look at other viewer data such as how many stick through the whole thing, leave positive or negative comments, mark as a favourite, share it, check out other videos on the channel, etc.
If most people who come to the video don’t seem to be enjoying it then it is not quality. Perhaps “quality” is the wrong word to use for this. YouTube and Google are about the viewer’s experience. A positive one brings them back.
Then they try to see the overall patterns in niches and with keywords and look for algorithms to weed out what people don’t seem to like.
Once again, in absence of YouTube’s input, this is all speculation. But that is the kind of stuff I’d be looking at if I was them.
I agree wholeheartedly!
Hey Gideon, thanks for posting this. Great topic. I especially like your reminder that it’s a privilege to use free platforms (like YouTube) so it makes sense to follow their rules. AND, most importantly, constantly provide more value to viewers/followers. It seems like common sense, yet we all need to be reminded about it from time to time. Great job! (P.S. I must start paying more attention to your video training to give my video production a major lift and bring them into the 21st century
@mrhulot101 sorry… had a lot to say!
Gideon
@richiesvideo Yeah the whole hacking thing is also very interesting. If someone hacks into your account and upload all kinds of questionable materials, I would imagine an immediate termination by YouTube. For that to work, someone would need to hack into your account – hence the importance of using strong passwords.
@ucp43 I really don’t like the sound of that. A bit scary really. Seems too easy!
Gideon
@CharlesRiveracom I guess they could, unless you have a funny accent like me and they can’t quite decipher what you are saying hehehe!
Gideon
@ProPodder yup – not so good. What is the alternative for them though? How could they manage such a massive following?
Gideon
@GideonShalwick Sadly, there’s not a lot of options out there (if any). Maybe after the FTC gets done with them we’ll have some options. But as of now… zilch.
@GideonShalwick Sadly, there aren’t any alternatives. Maybe after the FTC gets done with them we’ll have options. But, until then… zilch.
Gideon – thanks for publishing this. Your content is always top notch and it’s very timely. I’ve known a few others affected by this issue. The best advice you gave was to keep a backup… you never know!
I’d like to be able to contact to a human at youtube. Someone has been sitting on a desired youtube username for 4 yeras, and hasn’t used it ever. Hell, I might have even taken, and forgotten the username and password, but there is no way to contact youtube for help?!! …I think the email address i might have used is long dead.
Yes! Backup, backup, backup.
I know someone will say videos take a lot of space. But what’s worse all that hard work lost or buying an extra external hard drive (paying a service)?
Thank you Gideon for your thoughts on this – Theresa
No probs Theresa!
Always good seeing your comments here!
Gideon
Hey, Gideon, could you please tell us how did you make that video thumbnail?
Excellent Video Gideon.
I have done a check and none of my youtube accounts have been terminated. I think number of views would have been a factor in which accounts were terminated.
I have a few accounts with videos having views 700k+ and those accounts seem to survive youtube rampages even though I have not enabled the partner network on them.
Definitely new accounts with low views would be subject to youtube pandemonium.
[..YouTube..] Is there a way to get your account back if its terminated?
Just watched your vid,good work.
[..YouTube..] Just watched your vid,good work.
[..YouTube..] @XFatalWiingsX in some cases yes. Make sure you listen to the interview on my blog with Dave Jenyns – the link is in the description area. Inside the interview, Dave shares how he and others got their accounts back.
thank you for making video tips!
[..YouTube..] thank you for making video tips!
Gideon which program are you using to edit your videos? Final Cut Pro?
Lately my new video editor takes care of all or most of my editing. But whenever I do my own editing, it’s mostly ScreenFlow. Final Cut was just overkill for me…
Gideon
We just have to follow their rules and regulations. Period!
We just have to follow their rules and regulations. Period!
Interesting topic. But mainly, like everyone is saying, you just got to follow the rules, no shortcuts/scams!
Well lets say I haven’t been on my old account which was XFatalWingsX. It tells me this message: “This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s Copyright Policy.” I did know I had some copyrighted vids but I never had the chance to get rid of them. They didnt bother telling me they were gona terminate it. I tried filling out some form claiming I don’t own anything but its really confusing. I want to know if theres hope to save it. Please help?
nice video! thanks for sharing
Its censorship they are limiting free speech , I dont agree at all that we shouldnt complain , we should have themm investagated its BS.
Thank you for sharing this information, I’ve been lazy about opening and uploading to other sites but the points you make are clear don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.
FUCK GOOGLE, they terminated my other channel for a copyright infringment, i was unable to remove the video in time because the video was flagged while i was sleep, also my account was terminated before i woke up in the morning. My account name was “nautilusdubstep”. I spent 4 months making videos for that account and now its all down the drain. Meanwhile people like “Mrsuicidesheep” upload 100s of copyrighted music and he gets paid for it!!!!!
YouTube (Google) is playing with people’s livelihood (and lives) when they make these types of decisions. It’s bad enough that they don’t care about the impact this has on the marketer, but even worse is the marketer has absolutely no recourse in the matter. The same is true for Google dropping sites from SERPs for no apparent reason whatsoever. The worst part is they just don’t seem to give a damn.
Whatever happened to “Do No Evil?”
I guess it just goes to show that people don’t bother reading the terms of use.
Keep in mind, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. all belong to someone else! They let you post stuff for free provided you don’t get them in trouble or affect their ability to monetize the site. If you do stuff that could get them in legal hot water, or stuff that pisses off their clients (i.e. the ones they make money from) then you’re toast.
It would be nice to get a warning, but there is nothing that requires them to give you one. It would be nice to have an appeal process, but they’re not obligated to provide one.
It’s their ball and they get to make the rules.
thanks a lot dude, I’m just lost my youtube account a couple weeks ago and I don;t know why since I’m just upload 3 video. but now I understand that why that’s happen. again, thanks
If your account gets terminated for copyright, is there a way to still get your account back like Dave did? Help greatly appreciated.
good video here dude wow cool indeed man
So basically… “Take Youtube as a secondary video hosting site, and rely on other site.”
My Account Was Terminated Yesterday. Due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement. But then I closed my account my gmail settings. Is there a way I can Re-Open it? Or get it back somehow? Please Help. Thanks.
Hi Gideon, after the recent suspension of your Free Magic Live youtube account this topic sounds like a mine field. Do you know why the account was suspended? And what hope have we got if Youtube even suspend your account?
Hey Mark-just a quick correction…I’m not part of FreeMagicLive – although I did help set it up a couple of years ago,I have not been involved for about a year now…I’m not 100% sure why the account got terminated, and I think Jay Jay is still trying to find answers.Of course we hope that it was just some kind of misunderstanding.But only time will tell.My best advice is to be very clear on their TOS,and to play by their rules,but then also to have a backup strategy the way I teach.
Hi Gideon, thanks for the reply, sorry for the misundertsanding, I’ve only recently come across you and I guess it can be easy to get the wrong idea when watching past videos. I also read it in your very informative free Rapid Vido Blogging pdf – “For FreeMagicLive, we are now becoming a force to be reckoned with…” – anyway I just mentioned that to help out. Thanks for all the tips! Keep them coming!
Ah no probs at all
I should probably update my report a little, cos I wrote it while we were still working on freemagiclive together… thanks for your feedback – always appreciated!
Hi Gideon,
My YouTube account just got terminated yesterday. I have filled out the appropriate forms, written an open letter on my blog with nearly 130 comments now, and submitted a press release with PRWeb.com
Can you think of anything else I can do to get my account reactivated?
In your interview with David, he mentioned a contact person that may have helped get his account back. Do you know who this was and how we can get their contact info?
Thank you for any help.
Scott
Hey Scott
Hmmm… not good!
It sounds like you’ve followed all the right steps. The contact that we had does not work with people unless he personally knows them. I’ve tried that route with someone else and it came to a dead end unfortunately.
Please let me know if you do get your account back.
Gideon
What does it mean by “reason for appeal”? Do I apologize or do I state what I did wrong or do I say I did nothing wrong? Please reply as soon as possible.
Great advice. Thanks pal subbed
you didn’t tell anything on if you did getit
like i did
I love the Youtube community.
this is so so so cool just like day sjaswwwwwwwwwwww vooooooo
Hello Yoour a really good Example And Your Videos come in handy beacuz i have no views and i would like to follw your good tips and can you make a video on how to get eople to watch your videos beacuz i really try to get people to watch my videos but people dont do it so please help me Thank you !
when your audio gets taken away but you resolve it. and its matched with a third-party content are you “safe” ? because I say i terminated account and it said it was terminated because of too many third party notifications.
My acct also disappeared from one day to the next and though I was on a cell phone(smart phone) and I felt like I was the one to delete it, but how could this be? How could I just delete it so easily? I got my acct back, not the next day but do you know that I lost ALL of my videos? Many I had created! For my business. (Herbal Oils and Supplements : \ ) I was distraught for a long time. I have backed up some of my videos, but I don’t think all of them were backed up. I am still hoping they are
mine were educational, not a scam, although herbals are considered the same as trash in this country, no matter how awesome and efficient they are. Just saying, it was interesting, educational and not “dodgy”.
You know, I appreciate that you want to hear comments about this topic, so I will start by sharing that in this country, most of what the TV shares as “news” is not, it is just brainwashing. So we truly have the responsibility to share real NEWS, valid information when we have it. I realize that everyone is in a different place in life, what is important to one, one day is not the next, or vice versa, but there is knowledge that we can use, and even search for, it is not spam.
Fuck Youtube corperation, I will run into their offices with a bomb.
Thanks! I actually have a little pitch at the end of one of my videos. I had no idea…haha, I want to watch quick nicks videos as he is an obvious genius!
Hi Gideon
I have had a warning and have got one strike I think it was because I was filming my Dance Classes. I see everyone doing it.
where can you upload videos and not worry about rules?
Seth Godin’s latest post is how to make money online! – sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/how-to-make-money-online.html
Google should deindex his blog
He has been blogging for 10 years LOL!!
Hi Gideon,
Nice video but how you insert this photos,texts,e.t.c. in your backround
with what program?
Thanks for all the tips!!!
fuck the rules…beat the system…revolution!
=D
I just got my Youtube account terminated… the reason, “spam, scam, misleading content”
It was a review for a tumble dryer… i’m an experienced marketeer, it was well researched, offered quality, not a silly animoto video with some cheesy bg music.
I didn’t link to Amazon, linked back to my review site…
Of course I’m just getting their canned response to my appeal, oh, and to never own, a youtube account again!
It seems they can just pull the plug anytime they feel like it…
I had some quality reviews up there, with lots of views, none paid for…
Ah well… back to the drawing board.
Hi sir.. why ismy youtube account terminated heres its thag name ragrichardgutierrez
Hi Gideon.My youtube get terminated.I don’t know why i got terminated.I got 2 strikes before cuz of the copyrighting but after that i wasn’t puting nothing that it’s not mine so i don’t know why this happend.Can you help me to restore my youtube back?~Ivy~
my account only lasted 20+ days ;(
Please reply quickly/give the best answers you got
This just happened to be promoting my Empower Network Blog. An make money online was in my keywords. It isn’t a scam it is a blogging platform and I don’t spam anyone.
I’ve got my other account terminated also. I really need help I had all my best and favorite videos. can YOU PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO GET IT BACK?! PLEASE
How does one protect their channel/account from someone sending fake views? A channel I subscribe to just got their account terminated. They claim a malicious person may have sent fake views to their channel. Is it possible to protect one’s channel from such malicious act?