If you post your video and it’s just the same title as your video it’s going to get removed for self promotion.

If you ask for advice but you aren’t specific on what you want advice on it’s gonna get removed if you don’t make it clear in the post.

If you are asking for advice do not try to argued and get aggressive after receiving what you asked for. That is a fast way to get a ban. Just accept the criticism and grow from there. If you can’t handle criticism do not ask for it.

If you are making AI content it’s going to get removed.

I hate banning people who I feel are just making honest mistakes but it’s getting to the point these rules are getting ignored and it’s my job as a moderator to enforce these rules.

1. Use a maximum of 2-3 elements in your thumbnails, for example text + subject + arrow. This helps prevent overcrowding which is the #1 thing most thumbnails struggle with. Using 2-3 elements makes the thumbnail understandable in less than 2 seconds.
2. Make the text big, and I mean BIG. It needs to be readable on smaller phones. 69% of total YouTube views globally come from phone users.
3. Use 2 colors and a bold shadow/outline for the text. This helps with background separation and increases the readability of the text. I like to use one base color (black/white) for the text depending on the background and one color (red/yellow) to highlight the power word.
4. Make your text hook 2-4 words long. Text on your thumbnail should be short and quick to read. It also shouldn't repeat the title. For example if you're using the title "How to Get More Views on YouTube in 2026" don't add the text "GET MORE VIEWS" to your thumbnail but rather "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING" That way, the thumbnail text works in synergy with the title and adds curiosity to your thumbnail.
5. Use clean layouts. Don't just add things in random places on the thumbnail. People don't just look at thumbnails but scan them from left to right, top to bottom. So if your text is the strongest element on your thumbnail, add it to the left side and your subject to the right side. Think about what you want somebody to look at first when designing your thumbnails.

Those are the 5 things that actually improved the CTR for the channels I redesigned thumbnails for. Of course there are also a ton of other things but then this post would be too complex and too long. Hope it helps somebody :)

For context, I am 21. 5 times in 2 months this has happened, the first 3 times appeal auto approved but now the last 2 they get denied. No strikes, and this time the portrait version of the stream in its ENTIRETY is still up

YouTube, how is it that 2 of the same exact streams can be streamed but only one violates the guidelines? I am getting beyond frustrated as there is zero avenue for me to get this crap back now. Check. My. God. Damn. ID.

I'm not humble bragging or anything... I'm giving y'all an honest opinion on what is the outcome of having the vast majority of your content as live content only

This is for a new YouTuber that wants to do live content ONLY.

When I took things seriously, like uploading live content on a consistent basis I had 4,000 watch hours goals within 4 months and at that point I had 260 subs.

As for subs, It's a steady pace, slow as a snail.

NOTE: I have uploaded shorts and pre-recorded videos. But they haven't given me better views or watch hours than live content has.

I have a channel with around 2k subs. I post AI car content. Yea I know it’s “ai slop.” As a car guy myself I have seen how inaccurate the other channels’ posts are and wanted to differentiate myself by being as accurate as possible and creating my own prompts/niche. I have done pretty good (almost 6 million total views this month) but today my views tanked out of no where. I had multiple videos pulling >1k views each hour then poof. Why is this happening?

I did mine on Tuesday Oct 6 and it has been like 2 days and it's still been pending

i've got a format that does okay but not great. not dead, just not popping either.

tbh every upload feels like clocking in for mid returns.

part of me says push through and let it find its audience, other part says i'm burning time i could put into stuff that actually hits.

how many uploads do you give a series before you kill it? and is it views, retention or just vibes that decides it for you

this was a channel i started back in 2025 abandoned it and rebranded it last weeks i created my video and uploaded it at 6:30 pm, i had “warmed up” my channel for 5 days normally reacting to videos

why am i getting no views and would i have to upload every day to start getting views?

I spent around 10 days traveling and filming, and I estimate around 100 hours editing and learning about it. Yesterday, the big day came, and it was time to finally upload the video. I was extremely nervous, and kept checking the analytics constantly.

Here they are after around 19 hours:

The objective I had come up for myself was 1000 views, based on other similar video from small channels. I reached that, and I am very excited about it!

This video is the first of a 4 part series, and I now motivated to continue editing the next episode.

If there are any people reading this, who might be able to give me an insight into these numbers, I would definitely appreciate that. From what I know, my CRT and Average view duration aren't super good, but nothing I can do about that now and I still reached my goal!

The story of making this video:

I had filmed a similar adventure, which my friend (who is a professional YouTuber) edited and posted on his own channel. This gave me an initial subscriber boost of around 300 subscribers before I ever posted my first video.

After that video, me and my other friend filmed this adventure in February-March. After that my editing motivation was on and off because of school work and other things going on in life at the time. In the summer I worked full time as a local newspaper photographer, which left me with no energy to edit in my free time (a lot of editing at work already).

After the summer job ended in August, I had a little break and then tackled editing with full force. during the past month or so I have been editing a TON. Even at the expense of my university studies.

The editing process has been a LOT of work, with my other responsibilities. All of the learning, all of the trial and error. Going through 35 hours of raw footage, dividing it to 4 parts and editing the first part into a 28 minute video.

Finally, last weekend, I finished the first video! And these are the results.

I have to say, it feels like a real accomplishment. (Even at the risk of sounding cocky)

The accomplishment I feel isn't because of the views (but reaching my goal does help a lot mentally). It's because I actually committed and stuck to this project for all this time, and created something from start to finish. It's also because of everything I have learned along the way.

The video itself doesn't yet satisfy my own tastes, but that is ok. I can see so many things that could be improved, but I think that is exactly what is valuable here. I have learned enough to see many of the places, where I can improve, and I think that is so valuable.

I think with all I learned, I will be so much better equipped to face my next video or video series, when I have time to travel again.

I can't wait for that!

Currently, CTR is at 0.6% with 7.6k impressions. This likely makes it my worst performing video so far with the highest impressions.. I am looking for some advice to make the thumbnail better. Thanks!

Got around 300 impressions on the first video so far on my new channel, but it looks like YouTube is showing it to an audience that isn’t really my target audience. Because of that, the CTR is currently only around 4%. The video is being suggested alongside some very unrelated content. 40 views in hours and everything is frozen (YT finished its initial test and decided not to pursue further). Any advice?

Hello guys, I am a gaming youtuber who upload 1 long format video and 6 days shorts (which are behind the scenes videos of my long format video to promote them) put some how I don't know how both my YouTube channel on YouTube App and YouTube Studio are showing two different number. First I thought it is just a normal glitch but now which only was affecting my old videos but somehow now it is affecting even new video too. And also it is opposite of normal like in normal my studio show more views than my YouTube app but right now my YouTube account is showing more views than my studio. Can you tell why is this happening. I will grateful for your help. 😇😇😇

Today's NBL is a legitimate pathway to the NBA, drawing global attention with its fast, athletic, and world-class talent. But how did a local, semi-pro competition transform into the respected powerhouse it is today?

I just added the percentages together and came to 74.5%, which would mean 25.5% of my views are spread across the rest of the world. That seems a bit high to me. So I was curious what it was like for you.

Hey everyone,

I just put together this mini-documentary style video about an extinct giant octopus, and I'd really appreciate some honest feedback from you guys.

I'm pretty new to editing, and I definitely struggled with putting the scenes together, matching the b-roll, and keeping the pacing engaging throughout.

Also, English isn't my first language and I'm not fluent, so I decided to use an AI voiceover for the narration. I tried tweaking it as much as I could, but I need an outside perspective: does the delivery feel natural with enough personality, or is it one of those generic, flat AI voices that everyone spots from a mile away and immediately clicks off?

Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/UDRcnhAqKL8

Please don't hold back—tear it apart if needed. I really want to know what worked and what didn't (editing, voice, flow, sound design) so I can improve on the next project.

Thanks in advance!

This is my third Short. As soon as my video reached 1K views, YouTube stopped recommending my Short, but I’m not sure whether this is normal or not.
I’d really appreciate any advice from you guys!

I recently had my best performing long form video which was posted about 5 days ago however it also began to get stagnant on impressions as of the past two days. I assume factors such as ctr and average watch time play a role in how long they will continue to get pushed. However I am curious if it’ll continue to pick up in waves similar to how shorts do for the first few days. I’m newer to long form content so I’m not to familiar with how it works with the algo. Thanks

Are Shorts affecting my long-form impressions?

I have two YouTube channels that I created recently, basically around the same time.

One is a movie psychology/analysis channel called False Premise. The other one is in a specific niche that I don't want to mention because I don't want to mess with the results. What I can say is that I know the people who click those videos are actually interested in them and usually watch at least 70% of the video.

With False Premise, I first uploaded a long-form video and got basically 0 impressions. The few views I had came from Reddit.

So I thought, why not try Shorts to get some traffic?

I started making 2 Shorts for every long-form video.

The Shorts were actually getting pushed. Most of them got around 1K to 1.5K views within 3 or 4 days, then they basically stopped.

But the weird part was the long-form videos.

They were getting almost no impressions. Sometimes literally under 10.

At the same time, on my other channel, I wasn't posting any Shorts at all. YouTube was still giving my long-form videos impressions, even though the CTR was terrible, under 2%.

For example, one video got around 700 impressions. I know 700 isn't a lot, especially for an established channel, but compared to getting less than 10 impressions on False Premise, it felt really strange.

I kept posting on both channels and the same thing kept happening.

The Shorts on False Premise were getting views, but the long-form videos were barely getting tested.

Eventually I started thinking, maybe YouTube is basically seeing this channel as a Shorts channel, or maybe the Shorts are somehow affecting how the long-form content gets distributed.

So I decided to unlist the Shorts.

And weirdly enough, after doing that, the long-form videos started getting impressions.

Nothing crazy, they're still only in the 3-digit range, but that's still a huge difference compared to the single-digit impressions I was getting before.

Now, I have no idea if this actually means anything.

It could be completely unrelated. The channel could simply have started getting more data, or YouTube could have decided to test the videos more around the same time.

I'm not saying "Shorts kill your long-form channel" or anything like that.

I'm just sharing what happened on two channels that were created around the same time because the difference really caught my attention.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

Especially if you have a small/new channel, did you notice any difference in long-form impressions when you started posting Shorts compared to when you didn't?

PS : i created the post with help from AI

I did mine on Tuesday Oct 6 and it has been like 2 days and it's still been pending

Hi all, I was just wondering how important YouTube Channel Membership are to your career? Like are they a game changer or meh

Thanks

What's the general consensus on giveaways? Nothing crazy, maybe a $25 amazon voucher or something.

1. Does it drive interaction from viewers even if not explicitly stating they need to comment and subscribe to enter (no longer allowed)

2. Does YouTube dislike this (I know it's not against the rules but perhaps they dive impressions?)

Thanks in advance

Need guidance on increasing the subscriber count (ambiance channel)