Have you had a video on your Youtube account flagged or are concerned about having your Youtube account suspended permanently?
The last thing you want to see when you log into your Youtube account is this:
I’ve had a couple of my videos flagged within the six month period so I came extremely close to having my account suspended.
Let me tell you, it’s not a great place to be.
I could go on and on about the vagueness of the Youtube Community Guidelines and how annoyed I am at Youtube (which is to put it mildly) but I won’t do that here.
This post is about helping you to avoid getting your Youtube videos flagged and your account suspended.
First thing you should know is that if you do get a video flagged, that violation only stays against your account for 6 months.
After that, the violation is removed.
If you get two videos flagged within 6 months, you won’t be able to upload any new videos to your account but your account and your existing videos are still live.
Now, if you get three violations within 6 months… you’re done.
You’re out of the game and never to return.
So, if you’ve already had one video flagged, I’d recommend laying off uploading new videos until the 6 month period is over.
If you have two videos flagged in your account, DON’T do anything. Don’t upload any new videos or make any changes to existing videos whatsoever…
… at least until one of the violations lapses and is cleared from your account.
Now, here’s what I’ve discovered about why your videos might be getting flagged. Because some of you, like me, may have read the Youtube Community Guidelines and are left scratching your head thinking…
… “But I’m not doing any of that stuff.”
No-no #1: ‘Make Money Online’
For example, it doesn’t say anywhere in the Community Guidelines about uploading videos that teach people (ethical) ways to make money online.
However, I have discovered that if you use that phrase in your title, i.e. “Make Money Online”, your video will get flagged by Youtube.
So, that’s one big tip to take from this post; don’t use the phrase “Make Money Online” or anything similar to that, in your Youtube titles.
It’s hard to do that when your niche is ‘make money online’ and ‘Internet marketing’. The way I get around it is to make Internet marketing related videos, but not specifically about making money.
I end up making videos around subjects that are closely related to Internet marketing, e.g. WordPress, Adwords, Clickbank and Amazon tutorials, to name a few.
No-no #2: SEO
Another topic you want to keep away from is SEO strategies.
In case you didn’t know, Youtube is now owned by Google. And Google doesn’t like it when anyone tries to manipulate search engine rankings.
So keep away from video topics that involve SEO strategies, except for ones that Google already encourages themselves.
No-no #3: Scams
It should go without saying that you shouldn’t create any videos that are dodgy in any way. E.g. scammy forex products.
If you’re videos are motivated by a desire to contribute to the Youtube community, you’ll do well.
No-no #4: Automation Tools
Another thing you want to keep away from is any sort of video automation tool that creates videos or publishes them faster than a person could do themselves.
Youtube doesn’t like that.
No-no #5: Fake Views
Going along with the previous item, never ever buy packages (like on Fiverr.com) that promise to send viewers to your Youtube videos.
Note: some like to do this as it will help them get more views (social proof).
Youtube is smart. If they think you’re trying to game the system they’ll can your account. Period.
No-no #6: Copyrighted Material
Never use copyrighted material in your videos. This can include music soundtracks and video clips of your favorite movies and shows.
Don’t do it, even if it is only a small segment.
How To Get Into Youtube’s Good Books
My final tip is this; if you want to get into Youtube’s good graces, then you need to play their game.
Youtube, like any other website, is a business.
You are far less likely to have your account suspended with Youtube if you accept their invitation to join their Partner program.
The Youtube Partner program is about sharing advertising revenue generated when ads are shown before and during your videos.
Now, when you become a partner it doesn’t mean you have to show Google ads on ALL your videos. You can select which ones.
I’d recommend running ads on at least one video.
That’ll make Youtube happy and keep your account safe from the grim reaper.
Have you had one of your Youtube videos flagged or your account suspended? I’d love to hear your experience. Please leave a comment below.
I have had one video flagged and I tried to contact Youtube to no avail. Then I lost interest in Youtube marketing for about 8 months. It’s only now that I am back. The maddening thing is, it was a video that had nothing to do with any of the things you have written above!
Anyway, thank you for the tips. They sure are handy.
Thanks Sunganani. I’m curious… what was your video about?
Thanks for the tips. I sure was unable to understand the first one when I read it in the guidelines but oh well.
My account got banned for two weeks, nd I don’t even know why. The first video that was flagged was a fifty subscriber special and I kind of didn’t do a lot just talked about things. It got flagged and I was like “wut?”.
Then the other one was a video of me beating a level on a pretty popular horror game, and I made a little edit with one of the monsters saying “Its raping time”, and since this is a quote from one of Pewdiepie’s videos, it got flagged almost instantly, like 1 hour after I uploaded it. I don’t even know why, everything was legit and nice and all… 🙁
Thanks for sharing Gordoth.
Let me give you an update on my Youtube situation (this might help)… since I’ve enable Monetization on my Youtube account, and also allowing Youtube to advertise on all my videos (I choose the ‘Overlay in-video ads’ only because it’s not as intrusive as the ‘Trueview in-stream ads’) I haven’t had one video flagged at all…
…and this is after uploading at least 50 new videos 🙂
(fingers crossed!!)
Well, wow, you replied pretty fast. But, between us, I got my videos removed and the strikes dealt AFTER I enabled monetization. I do not know why,but people seem to just hate me because I am still under the age of 18. Also, if you are asking about how do I get monetization, it’s called dad
lol
People listen. Make a backup of your videos. If your account gets terminated then just create a new account and reupload your stuff. It’s not that hard. Personally I will just keep creating new accounts. Sick of all this censorship nowadays. And as for Google, they ruined the Internet. Everything is their way or the highway. Forget that. It’s my way and that’s it!!!!!
Hey Sean, thanks for the comments. Yeah, I’m not a big fan of Google censorship standards. All that hard work I had done, and it’s gone in an instant with no explanation apart from a generic response. I checked their guidelines so many times it’s not funny. There was nothing I was doing that went against them. They are truly heartless.
Hi john sir,
I’m feeling some rival channel might have flagged it off as. Wer posting original content.youtube also isn’t giving any reasons.
Plz help as our teams whole work is invested in it.
Also we haven’t posted any violence stuff on YouTube.its just normal pranks which we are working on
Thanks for the message Rohan. Please post your youtube channel and also the links to the videos that have been flagged (maybe you could upload them to Vimeo and put the links here?)
How do you address stalkers who flag videos just to get at you or get your attention?
Thanks for the question, Art. Sorry I’m not sure how to get around that issue.