- You've just lost loads of subscribers
all at once, haven't 'ya.
And you're coming to me for answers.
It's all your fault...
Maybe.
(logo whooshes)
- [Male Voice] vidIQ
- [Female Voice] vidIQ
- [Male Voice] vidIQ.com
(calm electronic music)
- Good morning, good afternoon, good evening,
good wherever you are in the world.
I'm Rob,
and welcome to vidIQ,
the YouTube tool and channel
that educates you on your YouTube journey.
And if you're new here and you want to keep up to date
with all of the YouTube tips, tricks,
and advice we have to offer,
make sure to subscribe and tap that notification bell.
(bell chimes)
School is in session.
It's the second time I've done that,
and it's no less cheesy.
Have you ever noticed this message appear
in your creator studio
as you've been rummaging around your analytics?
"Over the next few days
"you may see a noticeable in your subscriber counts,
"as we remove spam or close accounts from your channel."
Let's be honest, to the average creator
that's a pretty scary message to encounter,
as it almost suggests that you are personally responsible
for some nefarious YouTube activities.
(Rob gasps)
Yeah, I do like a good use
of the word nefarious in a sentence.
It gives me an idea actually.
If you wanna try and challenge me
to include any weird and wonderful words
in my YouTube videos or livestreams here at vidIQ,
post those in the comments below.
Cue the spam filter going into overdrive.
Now, back to the topic at hand.
Don't worry.
This is not a personal attack on your channel.
This message will have been received by every YouTuber
in the creator studio over the last couple of days
because it affects absolutely everyone.
In YouTube's one words
they do "regularly verify the legitimacy
"of accounts and actions on your channel."
And that includes checking the validity of your subscribers.
Now you might call this YouTube's version
of channel auditing,
but we're not gonna call it that,
since we do channel audits for you
every single Tuesday at 11:00 a.m.
Nice plug.
(bell chimes)
Whatever you wanna call this,
it happens to some degree on YouTube every single day.
That's why during the Pewdiepie
versus T-Series subscriber race,
I had to crowbar that reference in here somewhere,
you saw one of the channels
lose thousands of subscribers in seconds.
It's all to do with YouTube making sure that the numbers
are all right.
But every three or four months,
YouTube will do a massive purge of subscribers,
or they will fix a problem with subscriber counts.
Last December YouTube acknowledged
they had a issue removing spam accounts,
which led to a huge subscriber killing spree.
We ourselves lost over 700 subscribers in that single purge.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. (record scratches)
Hang on, hang on, hang, on.
We need to ask ourselves a serious question now.
Is vidIQ up to nefarious activities.
Uh, no.
For the vast majority of channels,
they will lose subscribers through accounts
that either the user themselves have closed,
or because YouTube have terminated them
due to a policy violation.
Nothing to do with you.
On the other hand,
YouTube subscribers gained through artificial means,
such as purchasing subscribers
through a third party service,
could be your fault,
and as well as losing those subscribers,
you may lose your entire channel.
So if you're ever tempted
to buy YouTube subscribers, don't do it.
And this video will explain exactly why.
On the other side of the coin, you have to consider this.
Your channel could be whiter than white, clean as a whistle,
but ultimately you have no control over those subscribers.
It could be that someone else is acting nefariously
not in your best interest.
So if you do ever notice anything suspicious
happening on your channel,
loads more subscribers but no increase in views,
it might be better for you to contact YouTube first.
If you can.
If you do ever want to scrutinize the subscriber numbers
in more detail,
in the new creator studio you can click the see more link
on you channel analytics,
and then click on subscriber source
to see a full breakdown of all the subscribers you lose.
You gain subscribers, you lose subscribers.
Bada bing, bada boom.
It's the life of a video creator.
Now, while you may notice a change in your subscriber counts
because, let's face it,
all video creators have an eagle eye
on how many subscribers they've got.
The public may never even notice a thing.
That's because since September
YouTube have been abbreviating subscriber counts
to the public,
depending on the size of your channel.
In our case, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers,
our number increments every thousand.
So you might not have even realized we lost 700 subscribers.
And at the end of the day remember this.
If YouTube is deleting subscribers from your channel,
that's because those subscribers
don't mean anything to your channel.
They're illegal, illegitimate, not wanted by anyone.
Unless, of course,
YouTube really are unsubscribing legitimate viewers
from channels,
which they've been watching for years,
which many people have accused YouTube of doing.
Hmm, perhaps YouTube
really are the nefarious ones themselves.
While some wonderful videos
that are well worth watching appear on the left-hand side,
I've got a question for you.
If your channel has undergone
a previous YouTube subscriber purge,
how many subscribers did you lose.
Let us know in the comments below.
And, as always, enjoy the rest of your video-making day.