Hi Creators! My name is Conor and I work on YouTube’s Ads Policy team.
We know you’ve been asking for more clarity and transparency around YouTube’s Advertiser-friendly guidelines, so we’re creating this post to share short updates that highlight clarifications made to Help Center articles (namely the Advertiser-friendly content guidelines). If you “Subscribe” to this post, you’ll receive email notifications in your inbox whenever we publish an update to any of our ad-friendly guidelines resources. All of these updates are also logged on Upcoming and recent ad guideline updates. With us so far? Good. 😉
When our teams identify guidelines that need more clarification (commonly based on your feedback!), we update Help Center articles to include additional details and examples, or we restructure the information to be more clear. The goal is to make our existing guidelines much more transparent and understandable for creators who want to monetize their content on YouTube. Within this forum, you'll see the most recent update pinned below this box as the "recommended answer".
As we continue to build out these resources based on your questions and input, make sure you’re using Self-Certification to rate your content – we’re constantly examining Self-Certification accuracy to determine where Creators are struggling to understand elements of our guidelines, and make updates to the guidelines themselves for added clarity.
Updates for multiple policies in the Advertiser-friendly content guidelines and Gaming and monetization articles (April 2021)
Based on creator and advertiser input, we’ve updated our guidelines to allow more content to become eligible for full monetization (green icon) while continuing to maintain advertiser industry standards.
First, we're expanding monetization on educational, documentary or news content that may include violent interactions with law enforcement, recreational drugs and drug-related content, or sensitive events. We’re also expanding monetization for controversial issues where non-graphic, objective discussions of controversial issues are in the video.
Second, we're also expanding monetization to allow for adult themes delivered through the context of humor (e.g. romance, dating jokes) and the usage of moderate profanity (e.g. shit and b**ch) in the first 30 seconds.
Additionally, we’ve included more examples to the following sections to clarify their guidance: Adult content, Harmful or dangerous acts, and Firearms-related sections in the Advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
The Tips for monetizing gaming videos section of the Gaming and monetization article has also been updated in parallel to reflect these policy updates.
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
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The article now includes a more comprehensive list of issues considered controversial, and an explanation on how we define sensitive events. We’ve also clarified our guidelines around Inappropriate Language by adding more details here.
There are no policy changes, which means you shouldn’t expect any difference in how your videos are checked for advertiser friendliness.
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Content that references and/or features COVID-19 and follows our Advertiser-friendly and Community Guidelines may now monetize (and will see the green icon). We’ve created a brand new Help Center article dedicated to this update, including examples and detailed guidance on monetizing COVID-19 content here.
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
The article now includes examples of content types that fall into each of the options outlined in the Self-Certification questionnaire found in YouTube Studio. We’ve also included definitions of key concepts, such as nudity, that are referenced throughout the questionnaire.
There are no policy changes, which means you will not notice any difference in how your videos are checked for advertiser friendliness.
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
The wording in this section has been amended to clarify that misspelled profanity within a title or thumbnail intended to censor inappropriate language results in Limited or No Ads. Creators can review the updated language here.
There are no policy changes, which means you will not notice any difference in how your videos are checked for advertiser friendliness.
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
Updates for multiple policies in the Advertiser-friendly content guidelines and Gaming and monetization articles (April 2021)
Based on creator and advertiser input, we’ve updated our guidelines to allow more content to become eligible for full monetization (green icon) while continuing to maintain advertiser industry standards.
First, we're expanding monetization on educational, documentary or news content that may include violent interactions with law enforcement, recreational drugs and drug-related content, or sensitive events. We’re also expanding monetization for controversial issues where non-graphic, objective discussions of controversial issues are in the video.
Second, we're also expanding monetization to allow for adult themes delivered through the context of humor (e.g. romance, dating jokes) and the usage of moderate profanity (e.g. shit and b**ch) in the first 30 seconds.
Additionally, we’ve included more examples to the following sections to clarify their guidance: Adult content, Harmful or dangerous acts, and Firearms-related sections in the Advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
The Tips for monetizing gaming videos section of the Gaming and monetization article has also been updated in parallel to reflect these policy updates.
Our automated system analyzes replies to choose the one that's most likely to answer the question. If it seems to be helpful, we may eventually mark it as a Recommended Answer.
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