[Ad-Friendly Content Guidelines] Ask us anything! YouTube Team will be here Friday January 25th.

Question

We’re excited to share a unique opportunity with you. The Ads Policy team here at YouTube (the folks that manage and write the monetization policies that decide which icon a video gets) would like to hear your questions and feedback about the Ad-Friendly Guidelines, including this new Help Center article that allows you to rate your content against the guidelines to get a better understanding of how suitable your video is for advertisers. 
If you have any videos that received a yellow icon but you’re not sure why, post the video below and we’ll pick some of them to discuss live with the team this week and share more details on why the yellow $ icon was applied. 
Here are some potential questions you could ask the team:
Do the same policies apply for gaming content? 
What’s an example of a ‘sensitive current event’? 
How many times can I use profanity in a video before I get demonetized?
Starting today: you can submit your questions related to YouTube’s Ad-Friendly Content Guidelines using the comments below and on Friday January 25th at 11:00am PST, our policy specialists will be here answering as many questions as possible – right here on this thread. 
Please bear in mind! The team will only answer questions related to this specific topic (since again, they only work on monetization policies, not things like YPP or other monetization product features). We’ll remove all off-topic questions that aren't relevant to the team.
Looking forward to all your questions!
Jordan 
TeamYouTube

Lorna J · Accepted Answer

Hi!! I'm Lorna and work on the Creator Monetization Product team in YouTube! SUPER excited to hear all your questions :)

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

Hi I'm Conor K! I work on the Ads Policy Team here in YouTube. My team writes the monetization guidelines (AKA the advertiser-friendly content guidelines). I'm really excited to see so many questions and some examples too. Let's get cracking!

Lorna J · Accepted Answer

QUESTION: How can YouTube be more transparent by telling creators why their content is or is not suitable for ads?
Great question, and thank you for being so open to learning more about these guidelines!! We are working really hard to improve transparency for you on the types of content that is and is not suitable for ads! Have you checked out our new Help Center article that gives you a chance to rate your videos against the ad friendly guidelines? We’re also currently experimenting with ways to give creators a way to predict if their content is ad friendly or not in the new YouTube Studio (and also with giving creators a chance to rate their content against the ad friendly guidelines when uploading!) Stay tuned!

Lorna J · Accepted Answer

Question: Hi, I'm a football analyst and I make football tactical analysis videos. Here's an example of my work (https://youtu.be/bA1G8tU5NqI). All the animations, art work and tactical strategies are made by me. I'd like to know if my videos are suitable for advertisers? Thank you for consideration.
Cool content!! It looks like you’ve been busy building out your channel :) There are 170 videos on the channel itself so we cannot say with certainty that all your videos are suitable for most advertisers but on the basis of this video I think you can be confident that your productions are advertiser-friendly!

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

Question: Are the advertiser-friendly guidelines harmonized with the advertising guidelines? Ie, if a video is deemed advertiser-unfriendly, could you still run it as an ad on other content?
They are slightly different because one focuses on abuse and the other focuses on what advertisers are sensitive to appearing on. Google’s Ad Policies focus on abuse, for example they would combat a spammy business model trying to sell an untrustworthy service to users. The advertiser-friendly content guidelines focus both on advertisers’ sensitivities to certain content and YouTube’s stance around monetizing or not monetizing certain kinds of content. There are only a couple of instances I can think of right now where something that could not monetize but can run as an ad. An example would include a Public Service Announcement video about suicide – that may run as an ad but would be not be in line with advertiser friendly guidelines and therefore not suitable to have ads appear against it. Hope this clarifies!

Jordan (TeamYouTube) · Accepted Answer

We noticed a few questions about specific YouTube Partner Program policies, which is different than our Ad-Friendly Guidelines. I’m decently familiar with YPP so attempting a few responses here:

Question: I make animated content with the same character and not much movements, is it repetitive content? Since the main goal is to make people laugh by what the character says , so in all the videos, differences are not much except my voice acting. The graphics are mostly same.
The policy around repetitive content is largely to prevent people from making content that is easily mass produced for the purposes of earning money from ads. If the primary focus of the video is voice acting and the audio content varies substantially video to video, then this is something we would allow in the YouTube Partner Program even if the visuals are similar.
Question: My channel was demonetized last month after being monetized since 2009. The vague reason was due to “reused content” but there is nothing on my channel that was not produced by me. What changed?
It’s hard to 100% answer without taking a look at your channel, but will share a bit more about the reused content guideline and hopefully that helps. If your channel is removed from YPP for having “reused content” that means we found lots of 3rd party content in your videos without providing significant original commentary, or educational value. 
The policy around reused content isn't new, but the way that we're enforcing it for channels in the YouTube Partner Program has become more strict. If you're using 3rd party content as part of your video, you need to sufficiently change the work. Things like stitching or aggregating content (even with permission from the original owner) is no longer something that we allow in YPP. 
If this doesn't sound like the content on your channel, you can definitely reach out to us and we can confirm that a mistake wasn't made or that the review team didn't missed some context – we're constantly reviewing thousands of channels so even when we're 99% accurate, a handful of things could be mistakes.

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

Question: Where do videos of police activity fall on the spectrum? I assume that showing violence or victims of violence is not ad-friendly, but how about things like a pursuit, or footage of someone getting arrested? Is that in-and-of-itself neutral?
First and foremost, I would consider the reasons they may be being recorded. An example of an upload featuring policy activity might involve an officer trying to arrest someone. There may be significant violence or profanity involved. Rather than thinking about this specific content area I would try to stand back and think about the advertiser-friendly content guidelines and whether what is depicted would fall into any of the areas we call out.

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

Question: A channel with one community strike can it be monetized after review or the creator has to wait all three month for a community strike to expire?
Proposed Answer: A channel with one or two strikes can continue to monetize. Though, with three strikes the channel is terminated – so in that case you have bigger worries than, “will ads appear on my uploads?”.

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

Seven questions in one! Love it. Let’s get down to business. Before I do however, I want to point out that some of these questions are too broad to be able to give concrete detailed answers to - so bear with me!

Q: Policies regarding cigarettes and alcohol seem to be different between hosted and non-hosted Adsense accounts. Will it continue to be this way?
A: We're not 100% sure what you're asking here but the video level monetization policies do not change depending on the hosted/non-hosted nature of your AdSense account. Hope that answers your question!
Q: Would you consider text-based content, such as a novel written by the creator, suitable for advertisers?
A: So long as the contents of the novel does not focus on topics called out in the advertiser-friendly content guidelines then it should be fine to advertise.
Q: Where do niche contents stand? Some contents that not everybody enjoys but have a very small, yet dedicated fan base.
A: As above!
Q: Is it okay to show someone in white bikinis but not okay to show someone in white underwear, in the same situation?
A: It’s hard to comment concretely on this one (sorry!). We would need to see an example so we could judge the context. Some beach wear is just beach wear but in some circumstances it can be worn in situations that are sexualized. That is why examples are always useful.
Q: Are long and steady content with not much motion, like ASMR and healing videos, considered ad-friendly?
A: Again, it depends on the context. ASMR can sometimes house themes that are advertiser-unfriendly. An example of this would be overtly sexual ASMR videos where role-play extends into more erotic or sensual themes. Healing videos are generally fine to monetize but we would urge you to be weary of making claims around outcomes that may be misleading or cannot be substantiated (for example, “this meditation video will cure your cancer”).
Q: What if I film sport matches or motor shows where the teams are already sponsored? Is the content considered ad-friendly, when they already have sponsors?
A: Again, it depends on the context. ASMR can sometimes house themes that are advertiser-unfriendly. An example of this would be overtly sexual ASMR videos where role-play extends into more erotic or sensual themes. Healing videos are generally fine to monetize but we would urge you to be weary of making claims around outcomes that may be misleading or cannot be substantiated (for example, “this meditation video will cure your cancer”).
Q: F1, F2 and WorldGP are considered not very good for the environment. Are they considered ad-friendly?
A: Uploads of raw footage of sporting events are allowed to monetize. 
Q: Are people talking about their experiences or their made up ‘tales’ considered ad-friendly?
A: See my answer in your first question above! YouTube is a platform where we cherish discussions of diverse experiences. Though, not all of these uploads will be considered ad-friendly.

Lorna J · Accepted Answer

Question:Why does a creator who is not monetizing (Not in the Partner Program today) not get a notification if their the content is non ad-friendly?
It’s great that you want to ensure you are creating ad friendly content even when your channel is not monetizing at this time!  As ads won’t be running on these videos, we don't apply a green or yellow icon but feel free to use this Help Center article to understand if a video would meet these advertiser-friendly content guidelines! Good luck to everyone applying to be in the YouTube Partner Program in the future!

Jordan (TeamYouTube) · Accepted Answer

Question: Why were so many posts flagged as “off topic” even if they’re about monetization? Please give everyone a voice. 
Community Manager jumping in on this one! Our two excellent team members, Conor and Lorna, who are helping answer questions today work on our Ad-Friendly Guidelines, just don’t have the expertise to answer all types of monetization questions (though we did try and answer a few that were still somewhat off-topic, including about YPP!). 
We noted this in the original post, but we 100% know that people have other monetization questions :)  We’ll use the other monetization comments to help inform future AMA topics. And as always, even if your off-topic question wasn’t answered as part of this specific Ad-Friendly Guidelines AMA, you can also start a new thread here in the forum to ask questions and discuss with others. Thanks!

Lorna J · Accepted Answer

QUESTION: I see yellow icons appearing on videos that I consider to be edge cases but many receive green icons after I submit them for manual review.  Should I continue submitting these videos for manual review?
Our automated review systems are always improving but we know that they’re not always correct. When you appeal videos you believe to be in-line with our ad friendly guidelines and our human review team agrees -- it helps our machines to learn and improve!! As a result,  please continue appealing any videos you feel may be incorrectly demonetized (feel free to use this resource to double-check ad friendliness before appealing!).
 We’re also piloting a program right now to give creators a chance to rate their content against our ad friendly guidelines to help reduce inaccurate demonetization as a result of our automated systems and to help our systems learn by using creators input, stay tuned for more details on this :)

Lorna J · Accepted Answer

QUESTION: If a video is deemed not to be advertiser friendly how, if at all, does that affect YouTube Premium revenue specifically? And can you just explain how YT Premium revenue works in general? 
How suitable a video is for advertising does not impact revenue from YouTube Premium. 
In terms of how Premium revenue works,  we collect membership fees from users that subscribe to Premium in a given country. At the end of the month, we look at all the stuff those people watched, and split out revenue based on how much members watch your content. Check out this Help Center article for some more detail!

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

Noticed a couple of questions that are inter-related so grouping them together. Damn, you're keeping us on our toes! :-)

Question: Are your guidelines applied in the same way for everyone and how are statuses determined (yellow/green icon)?
Great question, and a great opportunity to provide a little bit of clarity around the messaging “not suitable for most advertisers”. The guidelines are informed by our passion to combine great ads with great content and specific ad industry feedback about what content they simply never want to appear on. In addition, channels are not given a blanket status with regard to which icon its videos receive. Our human raters are specifically instructed to ignore the content from previous uploads they may have seen from a video’s channel and view each new upload without any bias.
Question: How do I know what content is suitable?
YouTube’s message to its Creators on a number of fronts is, “Context is Important”. We are going to be building out our resources around monetization guidelines over the coming months so you are armed with more specific advice from us as to what kinds of content are more or less likely to see ads but the diversity of content on the platform is going to mean that our advice to you is unlikely to cover all the scenarios you may want it to. Check out are new Ad Friendly Guideline Help Center article too which can help you understand if your video meets our advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
Question: Are the guidelines the same all over the world? The standards and culture of advertisers are different in each country and area. For example, good videos in Japan often prohibit in other cultures. If it’s the same all over the world, I think that it is difficult for users to be aware of the entire world. Do you have ad-friendly in Japan, but different for other countries?
Great question and thanks for raising it. Our advertiser-friendly content guidelines are global and have no country-specific rules. You are right in saying that some regions and their advertisers have varying levels of sensitivity to a variety of topics. We listen to advertisers feedback and meet regularly as a global team to calibrate on that feedback and on the content being referred to. We’re based in multiple locations all over the world and have over 12 different nationalities on our team to try and ensure we’re never ethnocentric. Our debates are always spirited and have a lot of diverse perspectives.

Conor (Ads Policy) · Accepted Answer

We saw a few questions about gaming content and our ad-friendly guidelines: 
Question: Does YouTube consider gaming channels with bloody videos or gore as ad-friendly?
First off, we love gaming. While a lot of advertisers do want their ads to appear on gaming content, some are a little nervous about the level of gore that may appear in some of the uploads in this space. Context matters, so if there is a scene where an enemy is killed and you quickly move on to your next battle that remains advertiser-friendly. However, if there is a short upload which features only gory deaths, that’s less likely to receive a green icon because of the lack of narrative and other parts of the gameplay. 
Question: What games can be monetized? 
Videos which feature a specific game (like, Counter-Strike) do not receive any more or less green icons than any other piece of gaming content. Our systems are agnostic so they (and we) view each video in its own right (I’m a big CS:GO fans, btw). 
Our automated systems do not make video-specific decisions around what can or can’t be monetized based on the publisher or game. On the contrary, not only do we want to see epic gameplays, we want you to have the opportunity to make money while doing it. As we said in our advertiser guidelines – violence in the normal course of video gameplay is generally OK for advertising, but gratuitous violence as the focal point is not. Excessive profanity as well as title, thumbnail or metadata can also impact a video’s monetization.