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🚩 Coming Soon: New Design and Criteria for Channel Verification on YouTube 1 Recommended Answer 0 Relevant Answers 255 Replies 1778 Upvotes
When you come to YouTube, it’s important to know if the channel you’re watching is the official presence of the creator, artist, public figure or company that it represents. With that in mind, we’re announcing upcoming changes to our channel verification program starting in late October. There are two parts to the new verification program: a new look and new eligibility requirements.
New look for verified channels on YouTube
- What will a verified channel look like come October? Currently, verified channels have a checkmark next to their channel name. Starting in late October, you’ll see a grey background on the YouTube channel’s name to indicate that it’s verified by YouTube. This new look will also replace the existing music note on Official Artist Channels on YouTube. To help you get familiar with the new design, you’ll see a message about the change when you hover over a verified channel name.
- Why are we making this change? Through our research, we found that people often associated the checkmark with an endorsement of content, not identity. To reduce confusion about what being verified means, we’re introducing a new look that helps distinguish the official channel of the creator, celebrity or brand it represents. The new look will also be displayed more consistently across channel pages, search and comments and is more difficult to replicate so that viewers can be sure of a channel’s identity.
New eligibility requirements for YouTube’s verification program
- What is the new criteria for channel verification come October? Under our current eligibility requirements, channels with more than 100,000 subscribers can be verified regardless of need for proof of authenticity. Our new criteria prioritizes verifying prominent channels that have a clear need for proof of authenticity. We look at a number of factors to determine if a channel meets this criteria, including:
- Authenticity: does this channel belong to the real creator, artist, public figure or company it claims to represent?
- Prominence: does this channel represent a well-known or highly searched creator, artist, public figure or company? Is this channel widely recognized outside of YouTube and have a strong presence online? Is this a popular channel that has a very similar name to many other channels?
- Why are we making this change? The previous requirements worked well when YouTube was smaller, but as YouTube has grown and become more complex, we need a new way to verify the identity of channels and help you find the official channel you’re looking for.
- The new criteria will apply for all channels: Channels that meet the new requirements no longer need to apply, we will automatically apply the new verified treatment. For more info about verification and eligibility, check out our Help Center.
- There is no process to request channel verification. If your channel is no longer verified, you can appeal here.
We hope these changes will help make verification on YouTube clearer and more meaningful. If you have questions about this change, let us know in the comments below!
Camilla (TeamYouTube)
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Update as of 3pm on Sept 20th: Based on your feedback, we've made some changes to this update, which you can find in our blog post. We've also copied the content of the blog post below:
Yesterday, we announced changes to the verification badge. The idea behind this update was to protect creators from impersonation and address user confusion. Every year, we receive tens of thousands of complaints from creators about impersonation. Also, nearly a third of YouTube users told us that they misunderstood the badge’s meaning, associating it with *endorsement of content*, and not an indicator of *identity*. While rolling out improvements to this program, we completely missed the mark. We’re sorry for the frustration that this caused and we have a few updates to share.
First, we heard loud and clear how much the badge means to you. Channels that already have the verification badge will now keep it and don’t have to appeal. We’ll continue reviewing those channels to ensure we’re protecting creators from impersonation.
Just like in the past, all channels that have over 100 thousand subscribers will still be eligible to apply. We’ll reopen the application process by the end of October. Going forward, we’ll review those channels to verify their identity. If we determine that a channel is attempting to impersonate, we won’t verify that channel and may take additional action. We’ve improved the process and will verify channels that are:
- Authentic: Your channel must represent the real creator, brand, or entity you’re claiming to be. We’ll look at a variety of factors to help verify your identity, and may also ask for additional info or documentation.
- Complete: Your channel must be public and have a description, channel icon, and content, and be active on YouTube.
Yesterday, we also announced a new look for the verification badge that will be displayed consistently across screens. Due to all the changes we’re announcing today, the new badge will roll out next year.
We hope that these clarifications are helpful and that these changes will improve the program for creators in the long run.
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Hey, I don't really like this update. It's good you're working on making sure the real accounts of brands/artists/creators can be found easier, BUT, personally the removal of the 'tick' is pretty bad. The new design looks interesting, will get some getting used to but right now meh. Maybe have this design AND the old one mixed together?
I've already seen some prominent creators saying they've lost their verification and I'm worried regarding their channels now.
Anyway, I have faith that YouTube will make changes to this update. Thanks
I think it's good to see you're working on legitimacy when verifying channels, but 'prominance' doesn't sound very good, especially if it's a creator who has just his 100k and wants to be verified so their audiance can know if it's the real deal.
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what does "Is this channel widely recognized outside of YouTube" mean exactly? to what extent does it apply? why is it even there? a high subscriber count is a much better way to decide whether or not channels should get the background or not. channels with a lot of subscribers get impersonated all the time, regardless if they are well known outside of youtube or not
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Exactly. Great question! I was wondering what does outside of YouTube mean? I noticed their are tons of celebrities creating channels now more than ever.
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Hey YouTube, thanks for making this pointless change! We don't need the notification box fixed or anything. We also don't need the copyright issues dealt with so creators don't lose money for trivial things.
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stop hiding my profile picture and you're killing me.
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