- If you're uploading videos to YouTube, it can be fun, you can make money, you can grow a community, but you can also make some major mistakes that can cause all kinds of problems for you, like your channel getting deleted, monetization turned off, and in some cases, even compromising the security and privacy of yourself and the people around you. So I'm gonna tell you what you need to know, and we're gonna start with the channel penalties. But because the privacy information is so important, I'm gonna put a timestamp that will jump you straight to that part if you are somebody that doesn't want to go through the channel penalty stuff.
The very first thing that you should never do unless you have a very clear reason for it, which we're gonna talk about the reason here in a second, is you should never uncheck the box that says notify your subscribers. The reason for that is somebody made a video somewhere, and I don't even know where it started, but they made this video telling people that that was a hack of some kind. Well, it's not.
And you know how these things go. One person will say it in a video and then another person will be like, "Oh, hey, let me say that," and then another person will be like, "Oh, hey, let me say that too," and then here we are having to make videos telling people not to do it because it's not gonna help you. In fact, this can actually hurt you because you are not putting your content in front of the people that are most likely to enjoy the content at that moment in time.
Instead, YouTube says, "Viewers get a maximum of three upload and live stream notifications from each channel in a 24-hour period. If you upload more than three videos in a day, you can disable some notifications to choose which videos have notifications. " This way, you can prioritize which videos your subscribers are going to see.
And as a side note, be careful out there. There's all kinds of information like this that people think is gonna help 'em out but actually ends up hurting them, so be careful. Next is heavy profanity or saying tons of bad words, especially when your videos are first getting started.
Doing so, if you choose, can cause your videos to be age restricted or have limited ads. And to be clear, it's okay to say bad words on YouTube. It's okay to share your opinions very colorfully with the language that you use, but the idea is you just don't wanna get carried away unless you want to have your videos age restricted or your monetization limited.
And if you get age restricted, then it can hurt your video performance because you're not gonna be able to show your content to a certain age group of people. Next, do not ever under any circumstance show people how to get around YouTube specific features or how to get around specific features on other websites. I know a lot of content already exists like this on YouTube, but don't make it because if you do, then you do risk getting a community guideline strike, and you only need three of those in order to lose your channel.
And those channels that are currently doing it, if it's you that's currently doing this, if you get three strikes, you're gonna lose your channel and all it takes is for somebody to report a couple of those videos and then everything's over for you, so please don't do that. In fact, I got a community guideline strike on this channel that you're watching right now a bunch of years ago. And what happened was I made a video that showed people how to go into the code of YouTube in their browser and get the links for a thumbnail so that they could download it.
And in that particular video, because I was showing people how to do that, it ended up getting a community guideline strike. I was able to dispute it, and fortunately, I was able to get it released because I was telling people in the video that you do not wanna do this with other people's thumbnails. This is only if you need to download your own thumbnail because you wanna show it in a video or something like that, because this feature wasn't available inside YouTube Studio at the time, and it ended up getting me the strike.
But fortunately, I was able to get it, you know, overturned. So just be careful with that kind of thing. Next, don't do giveaways where you do not use the required disclosures by YouTube.
YouTube is very specific about the rules of giveaways or doing giveaways on your YouTube channel, and because of that, you wanna make sure that, of course, you're following the rules. For example, you have to have official rules for your contest. You also have to clearly state that YouTube is not sponsoring your contest in any way.
You also need to put a privacy notice, so in the event that you collect any information during your giveaway like emails or something like that, you need to clearly state exactly how you're using that information and why you're collecting it. If you plan to do giveaways, I'm gonna put links to the information that you need to know in the video description. Next is adding too many hashtags to your videos.
YouTube says, "Over-tagging: Don't add too many videos in a single video or playlist. The more tags you add, the less relevant they become for viewers or listeners who are searching. If a video or playlist has more than 60 hashtags, we'll ignore each hashtag on that content.
Over-tagging may result in the removal of your video from your uploads or from search. " And to be clear, hashtags and video tags are two completely different things. Hashtags are where you put the pound sign, or the hashtag, and then you have all the words, you know, mashed together.
And when it comes to the tags, that is a very specific part of your upload process on YouTube where you add words or phrases that are relevant to the videos that you're uploading. Hashtags have results pages, so if somebody clicks on a hashtag, then YouTube shows other videos that are using that hashtag. Tags do not.
Another thing you do not wanna do is you do not wanna add celebrities or other content creators to your thumbnails if you are not talking about that content creator in your video. YouTube and viewers see this as misleading, and as soon as somebody starts reporting them, then they can end up losing the channel over those because they'll also end up getting community guideline strikes. Also, you may or may not know that thumbnails can also get copyright strikes on them just like videos can.
So if you're using something that you don't have permission to use in your thumbnails, then in that case, you are putting yourself at risk for those strikes as well. But if you are talking about that person in your video or the video is about that person, then you are allowed to use the image as long as you have rights to the image being used. If you do make content where you do talk about celebrities or you talk about famous people, just as a heads up, on Wikipedia, they're a great place for images because they have very clear licensing rules there about giving credit and things like that, so Wikipedia is a pretty good resource for that sort of thing.
Next, you do not want to use music or graphics or videos or anything else in your content that you do not have the legal right to use. The rule of thumb here is if you didn't make it yourself, if you didn't purchase it, or if you didn't get the license from the free resource that you downloaded it from, then in that particular case, you should not use it in your videos because you don't have any way to dispute it. And because you don't have permission to use it, you're not only putting your YouTube channel at risk, but if you're using stuff that you don't have permission to use, you can also end up in court, which is like a real life thing that you gotta deal with.
So you wanna make sure that you get the license for anything that you use in your YouTube video so that you can make sure that you don't have to deal with those headaches. Here's what you wanna do. On our free music service, Creator Mix, we have a license that you can get at the bottom of the page that gives you permission to use the music however you want.
That license is your permission slip to use that music indefinitely, and if you get a fake copyright claim, you have the license that gives you permission to use it. That's what you wanna look for for anything that you're gonna use in your videos so that you can ensure that you have permission to use it. And that even comes for things like, "Hey, my buddy said that I could use their song in this particular video.
" That's not enough. If that friend of yours ends up having some record label or someone buy the rights to that music, then that person can cause problems for you. So because of that, even if it's your buddy, get a license.
Now let's talk about safety, because as a content creator, you're putting yourself out there, and when you put yourself out there, you're interacting with a lot of different kinds of people, and sometimes it's people that don't have the best intentions, and sometimes it's people that can cause a lot of problems for you if you make it easy for them to do so. First, do not let the same email on your About Me page be the same email that is connected directly to your YouTube account. The reason for that is because it makes it a little bit easier when it's the same email address for someone to, one, abuse the email that comes with your main YouTube account.
Two, it also is one step that is removed for making things difficult for somebody to get access to your YouTube channel. Instead, set up a completely different Gmail account that you use as your public facing email account. This is gonna be the email account that brands are gonna reach out to you with, fans are gonna reach out to you with, and you are also gonna have people reach out for collaborations and other things.
Basically, if somebody wants to contact you for any reason, then they'll be able to do so through that email. Doing this also keeps your main YouTube channel account email clean in the event that somebody is trying to get access to your channel or something like that to make sure that you can clearly and quickly and easily see the notifications that are being sent to you. If all this is making sense so far and you haven't yet, give this video a thumbs up.
You also wanna be extremely careful of what you connect your YouTube channel to because there's a lot of things where they're using Google to sign into your, you know, to whatever the thing is, and it's not really necessary. So because of that, you might need to connect for specific YouTube tools or things that might need access to your YouTube channel in order for them to function properly. However, only connect to those things.
Don't connect as just a convenience thing. Instead, use a different account that you use to connect to all of those types of things. If you wanna see what devices and websites currently have access to your account, go to google.
com/account. Click Security on the left and scroll down the page. You're gonna see this area right here that says "Your connections to third-party apps and services.
" Click into that and delete any connections that are not absolutely necessary for your YouTube channel. Next, if you vlog or you make videos outside your house or around your neighborhood, you also need to be really mindful of what it is that you're showing in the background. Make sure that you cover up license plates or that you blur out license plates.
Make sure that you blur out house numbers. If you're walking down the street and you see mailboxes, make sure you blur out, you know, some of those numbers. If you have street names or street signs in the background, make sure that you blur those out.
Also, be mindful of stickers on your car that say where you work or bumper stickers on your car that say where your kids go to school if you're a parent. You wanna make sure that you don't show stickers on your windshield that are parking permits for where you work or maybe the complex that you live in. The same thing flies for wearing T-shirts that have company logos on 'em or any information about a company or a school or anything like that.
Now, I know some of this might sound a little bit overboard, but if you are somebody that is concerned about those types of things, or at least mindful about those types of things, then you just wanna make sure that you are applying that to what it is that you're doing on YouTube as well. If you have a website for your channel, make sure that you hide your address from public view by using the privacy service that's available through all registrars. The reason for this is anyone can go to a website like directnic.
com/whois and look up a domain name. If you don't have this private, somebody can find your address from this. I know a lot of domain companies offer that service for free, at least for the first year, so you just wanna make sure that you're using that and you just wanna make sure that it doesn't expire.
If you make tutorial content, you wanna make sure that you're being mindful of your email address and other private information showing up on your screen. I personally use Camtasia as one of the ways to get around this because Camtasia has a blur feature that makes it to where if you do accidentally show something or the interface that you are recording, if it's just you can't help but show the email address, Camtasia makes it super easy to blur things out. If you already upload something to YouTube that exposes an address or an email or something else that you want to hide.
YouTube also has a built-in blur feature inside of the editor that is available for any video that you upload to YouTube. If you are someone that does record your screen, I'll put a link to Camtasia down in the description so you can see what that's all about. Next, never click on a link from your email.
Now, some people are like, "Yeah, duh. " Other people are like, "Huh, why? " So when it comes to the links that are in your email, there's a lot of scamming going on right now where people are reaching out under the impression that they are a brand.
So they reach out to you and they're like, "Hey, we love your content. This is great. Love what you're doing.
I work for this company and we would love to sponsor some content. " And then you're like, "Sweet! I've been wanting to get brand deals.
This is awesome. " And then you start having those interactions and they're like, "Sweet! All we need you to do is sign this contract.
" They send you a PDF, you download it, and then they end up getting access to your YouTube channel because you've downloaded that to your computer and they have something that is attached to that particular PDF that ends up getting into your computer and makes it to where they can actually go directly into your YouTube channel and you can lose your channel within seconds of doing that. The same exact thing can happen when you click on links out of an email to where they can capture your information that way as well. So you just wanna make sure that you're being very mindful about what you click on, but really, it's best to not click on anything.
One thing that I like to do is if somebody sends me an email and they're trying to get me to click on something, then in that case I'll actually go and and just look for it. I'll hop on Google and I'll look for it because Google will show if something's malicious. So because of that, I'll actually search for the domain for whatever it is that they're trying to get me to click on.
And I don't download PDFs from people or companies I don't know personally. Because hackers and scammers are getting so good, my friend Liron has an entire YouTube channel about safety and about how to protect your YouTube channel and all of the other things in your life when it comes to these sorts of things. I'll put a link to him at the top of the screen so you can check out his channel if that's something that you're interested in learning more about.
Now, if you've gotten value from this video, I have a video about hidden YouTube settings that you probably don't know about. I'll put a link to that right here, and you can just go ahead and click into that now and I'll see you over the next video. Thanks for watching.
I'll see you over there.
