- YouTube settings,
they're vital to the growth and maintenance of your channel.
But they're not very exciting, are they?
How do we spice them up?
(loud explosion)
(upbeat music)
And now if this doesn't get you excited
about YouTube settings,
I don't know what will.
Because from your profile image
in the top right-hand corner of the YouTube Studio,
you can now select the dark theme,
which is awesome!
Except it isn't.
Desktop dark mode are rubbish.
Who's with me on this?
(crickets)
Ah, shut up.
Now, weirdly,
you do get access to a lot more settings
outside of the YouTube Studio.
And some are really interesting to look at,
such as your data in YouTube.
From here, you can adjust
how YouTube collects data from you,
and cool stuff such as looking through
all of the comments you've posted on other channels.
It still needs a little bit of work though this page,
to be honest.
It doesn't have any filter controls.
Back in the studio
and who on earth was responsible
for the most pointless general setting screen
on the internet?
Feels like whoever it was
got fired on day one or something.
Anyway, we digress
because the channel basic info screen
does have a setting relating to country of residence.
That's both more and less important than what you think.
What does that even mean?
I hear you ask.
Well, some creators believe that
if you set your channel to a certain country,
it'll be more discoverable in that country.
So people tend to think that
if you set your channel to the US,
you'll get more views from the US.
But it's simply not the case.
It has nothing to do with discoverability.
On the other hand,
what the country of residence is super important for
is the YouTube partner program.
When you apply for monetization,
you agree to terms and conditions
that vary from country to country.
Especially when it comes to potentially taxing your revenue.
So you need to make sure everything's set correctly,
and whatever you do,
don't lie or mislead YouTube.
It's just not the way to start off
a business relationship, is it?
Oh, and one more thing,
the location settings you can switch
from your profile image icon
have nothing to do with your channel.
It impacts the types of videos
that are recommended to you as a viewer.
Now then,
YouTube have been telling us for years at this point
that video tags don't help optimize content.
And I'm absolutely fine with that.
I've come to terms with this.
But it still leaves one lingering question in my mind.
What the hell are channel tags used for?
(upbeat music)
You know what?
That is a good question.
So let's check in with YouTube support page.
Well, I'm glad that cleared things up.
And you see,
this is the thing that bugs me a little bit.
YouTube had a golden opportunity to get rid of video tags
and channel tags a couple of years ago
when they transitioned from the classic YouTube Studio
to the new YouTube Studio,
but they decided not to.
And so when we see empty boxes
that suggest that we put keywords in there,
you bet your bottom dollar we're gonna do that.
Irrespective of how unimportant YouTube tells us they are.
So cards on the table,
I have no idea how important this setting is.
Probably not very,
and I haven't updated these in years.
So in the interest of science,
I'm going to replace what's here
with video tags from one of our
how to get 1,000 subscriber videos
since they always do so well.
I'll let you know if anything earth-shattering happens.
(upbeat music)
Now for a quick sidebar.
Did you know that vidIQ has settings of its own
you can adjust via the extension button in your browser?
This will allow you to hide or unhide tools.
Tools like daily ideas
that uses machine learning to analyze your channel
and suggest up to 50 daily video ideas,
which you can save or dismiss.
VidIQ has loads more channel growth tools,
and it's free to download and start using now.
Use the link on screen or in the description.
Now then, cast your mind back to late 2019
when YouTube was hit by a huge fine from the FTC
for violating COPPA laws.
There was a huge worry across the creator community
that people were going to start
being hit with $40,000 fines
because they were making content aimed at kids.
Add in the two years, and since then,
do you know of a single individual creator
that it has been hit by a fine by the FTC?
I certainly haven't.
I think the reason for this is
because YouTube is doing a very good job
of policing the content on the platform
before it even reaches the FTC.
And the way they do this
is through a very important setting
that you need to be honest and truthful with.
This setting will default all future videos
you upload to your channel.
For the vast majority of creators,
your content likely isn't made solely for children.
But if you're unsure how to answer this question,
we have an entire playlist you can dive into to learn more.
Next up, a question for you.
Do you have any idea how many viewers
use subtitles on your videos?
It's likely a lot more than you think.
It's over 20% in our case,
that's nearly half a million views a month
supported by subtitles.
And if that is the case,
you want to make sure that YouTube doesn't miscaption you
with some inappropriate language.
Unless, of course, you frequently use such language
and you are happy for YouTube to automatically transcribe it
as accurately as possible.
Now then, that subscriber count,
to hide or to show?
That is the question.
The thing you have to remember most
is that subscriber counts are on by default.
So if you choose to hide it,
that's going to raise a question in the viewer's head,
but we do understand why some creators do this.
They worry that their value on YouTube
is determined by their subscriber count.
And if that's not the reason why
you hid your subscriber count,
do let us know why in the comments below.
The advise for this setting on the other hand
is pretty straightforward.
If you check disable interest-based ads,
YouTube can't target viewers with personalized advertising.
And that will significantly lower your ad revenue CPM.
I'm actually fascinated to know
if anybody has voluntarily checked that box.
If you have, again,
let us know in the comments why.
Clips are a relatively new tool that allow any viewer
to literally clip up to 60 seconds of your video
and create a shareable link out of that clip,
which links back to the original video.
Now, personally,
I believe this feature to currently be half baked
because while viewers can see all of the clips
they have created from other people's videos,
creators themselves have no idea
when their videos have been clipped
and how often these clips are being watched
since there's no data in traffic sources to verify it.
Now I'm not suggesting for one second
that clips harm your videos or your channel.
Any opportunity to share your content is a good thing.
But if you are worried about what people are doing
with your videos on YouTube,
then you can disable the setting from here.
Which brings us onto one of the more controversial settings
YouTube have introduced recently.
Shorts sampling.
This allows any creator to use parts of your video
for their YouTube shorts content.
And the problem,
for me, at least,
is that this is set at a video level,
not a channel level.
Now you can go into the content screen,
select all of your videos,
and then turn off shorts sampling
because yes,
YouTube automatically turned it on
for all of your videos on your channel,
which is also really annoying.
But what they still haven't done is add shorts sampling
as a default setting to your channel,
so you can just set and forget.
And yes,
this is me waving my angry fist at YouTube.
(upbeat music)
There are a couple of useful settings
I want to point out to you
if you go to the YouTube account page.
The first can be found in advanced settings,
and this will show you your YouTube user and channel ID,
which you can copy if you need to.
Secondly, in the privacy settings screen,
you can switch on or off the visibility
of your subscriptions as a viewer.
If you turn it on,
it means that you will not appear in the subscription list
when creators are looking through their YouTube studio.
The feature eligibility page
has been massively simplified in recent years.
Can you remember when it used to look like this?
Well, it doesn't look like that anymore,
but it's still just as important
because verifying your YouTube channel with a phone
is one of the first things that you should do,
giving you access to publishing longer videos,
custom thumbnails, and live streaming.
Community guidelines strikes are still a thing, by the way,
and they have been added to the monetization requirements.
Your channel needs to be clean from such penalties
before you can apply for the YouTube partner program.
Now, so far,
I've shown you all of the new YouTube settings,
and many which have changed.
But since you're so far into the video,
I bet you're interested in those settings
that have actually disappeared from the platform altogether.
Can you remember when you had to set up
an associated website,
and that was the only link you could use
in YouTube end screens?
Well, that's gone away now.
You can post any link you want to into an end screen,
just so as long as it meets the community guidelines.
There also used to be something called
community contributions,
which allowed viewers to submit subtitles
for your videos in any language,
which you could then approve.
You can still edit and maintain existing contributions,
but new ones can't be submitted,
which is a bit of a shame, to be honest.
There are probably tons more YouTube settings
that have gone AWOL over the last couple of years
that I've simply forgotten about.
So if you are feeling nostalgic,
and you can remember some,
do drop them in the comments below.
Now then, confession time.
In filming this video,
I have grown quite attached to
that first setting I mentioned.
So your code word is dark mode for the win.
And if you are wondering why I haven't mentioned
upload defaults once in a video about settings,
it's because I've already made one,
it's got over a million views.
So you might want to check it out over here.
(upbeat music)