Your YouTube Content: Do NOT Count on Third Parties to Keep it Forever.
Hey guys and gals.
Just in case you haven't seen the hullabaloo about YouTube.com – I'll update you.
YouTube is an entertainment site. It's owned by Google.
Google is an advertisement site. They make money through advertisements.
YouTube is a free video site. It's also high page rank and gets a lot of traffic – which means that spammers went crazy putting crap on there along with advertisements for their own products and services.
Google decided they didn't like giving free advertising to people on YouTube. Which I can totally understand.
So, they started banning accounts – even legitimate ones – if their videos were promotional in nature or talked about making money online.
Since Google is the boss when it comes to YouTube, their opinion is the only opinion that matters.
You following so far?
So, how do you protect yourself?
Make sure that you're not using the terms “Make money” in either your titles or your tags. If you are – then change those, pronto. Also, read their terms of service regularly in case they change.
Understand that your goal isn't to try to game Google. (You try to game Google, and you'll lose every time – eventually.) It's about playing by the rules.
The only problem is that you can *THINK* you're playing by the rules and still be cut – if Google disagrees with you.
So, just in case…Â you should also do these two things.
- Submit your videos to other sites, too.
- Make sure that you have backups of ALL of your videos. Get it organized now.
Here's how to get your videos from YouTube if you need to do it.
- Login to your YouTube account.
- Go to “My Videos”
- In your list of videos, there's a dropdown box. Click it and you'll see “Download mp4.”
Do that for any videos if you don't have copies of them.
Note: It appears that you can only download 2 at a time and then you have to wait awhile. I think they're protecting their bandwidth.
So – go through your files on your computer first. Locate any that you're missing and just grab those few. 🙂
I hope this saves some of you some heart-ache.
Hugs,
Nicole Dean
PS. This doesn't just apply to YouTube.com. If you've got 100 articles submitted to EzineArticles.com – I'd have those backed up, too. If you're doing a BlogTalkRadio.com show – I'd have backups of your episodes, too. I would not trust any of your content that you care about to 3rd party sites. Back that up! 🙂
Recommended Resource:
Protect Your Online Business BEFORE Disaster Strikes
Check it out here: Teach Me How to Protect My Online Business
Scott Tousignant
June 30, 2011 at 1:27 pmYep, my friend just had 65 of his fitness videos pulled down because YouTube said that they violated their terms of service. They wouldn’t say exactly what the problem was and as far as we can see there is no violation, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they could care less about us and pull our videos down with out notice and without a complete explanation of reasoning.
SUCKS!!!
Emily
June 30, 2011 at 3:14 pmThanks for the heads-up. I may have a couple vids up that mention making money, will have to check on that.
Celene Harrelson | The Happypreneur
June 30, 2011 at 8:20 pmWow! Thanks so much for the heads up Nicole. That would be awful to lose all that hard work and content like the guy Scott is talking about. Holy smokes! I sure hope he had backups. I did have a couple on with the word money as I have a product teaching how to make your first $100 online. Went right over there and took them down!
As usual, you are in the know. It’s so nice to know a pal who’s in the know, you know?
Thanks Nicole!
Celene
Celene Harrelson | The Happypreneur
June 30, 2011 at 9:45 pmI went right over and emailed my list about this. So glad you are keeping us informed. You da bomb!
Elise Adams
June 30, 2011 at 8:27 pmJust started ‘youtubing’…is there another platform you’d recommend for vlogging? Or ‘how-to’ type communication via video.
Also, would Podbean be included in your caution re. third party sites? Because it’s a paid service–so would that be different?
Thanks!
Edie Dykeman
July 1, 2011 at 4:59 amThere is so much negativity going on right now between YouTube pulling videos and Amazon leaving affiliates high and dry in a growing number of States. It is definitely becoming more difficult to be an IM, although for me it wasn’t easy in the first place.
The sad thing is that a lot of good people are being hurt in the fallout such as the comment above regarding exercise videos.
I wonder what the next big announcement will be – Squidoo?
William
July 1, 2011 at 4:16 amDictatorship, a state of government under dictator rule. We gave them the power, now we must live by their rules. All dictators become more ruthless as they grow in power. And so we will all live under the dictator until and invading army arrives and topples the thrown. Long Live the King
Donna White
July 1, 2011 at 8:10 amWow. The gears in my brain got to turning. 🙂 I backup all my sites every week, so I know I have all that and it’s okay. But I need to make a list of where everything else is and regularly back up those or keep a copy. Normally I would keep copies of everything, but I think they’re safe on places like YouTube and Squidoo, etc. So I’m less cautious. Thanks so much Nicole and the other comments on this post.
Take care everyone,
Donna 🙂
Denise Wakeman
July 1, 2011 at 8:40 amThere are many sites where you can distribute video though YouTube is the giant. I also post my videos on Vimeo.com. However the best thing you can do is to host them yourself, if you are putting them on your site. I use Easy Video Player. However that doesn’t help with building visibility and driving traffic from other platforms. It’s an ever evolving landscape and these big boys really keep us on our toes.
As you point out, Nicole…keep a back up of EVERYTHING you produce: articles, videos, audios, slide shows, etc.
Nicole
July 1, 2011 at 8:49 amDenise –
What other sites do you use that allow “commercial/business” videos?
Thanks!
N
Lisa
July 1, 2011 at 11:21 amWatch out with Blogger too. I had 6 blogs removed because Google flagged them as spam. I was using an article submission service and had no idea this violated the terms of service. I tried to appeal and contact Google and remove the articles but to no avail. So some of my stuff was lost in the process and I did not make copies of anything.
Marilyn aka Grandma Marilyn
July 1, 2011 at 6:35 pmWow! Everybody wants more money if you get any money. What about those that are stuggling to get money and need storage area. Boy, doesn’t that take all.
Jason Mitchev
July 5, 2011 at 1:53 pmOhhh! I just overheard a business owner this morning at the pool. She is working with another business on a project they plan on using Youtube. Thanks so much for the information. I can now give her a heads-up so she can re-work her plans. It would be a shame for her to get it all up and running and then have it all pulled.
Cliff Pasta
July 5, 2011 at 4:12 pmThanks for the great “heads up” Nicole. YouTube will most likely be everchanging, so we really do need to stay alert to whats going on.
Al was asking about downloading video content from YouTube even if it wasn’t your video. There is a free way to do that using a Firefox plugin called “Download Helper”. I use it all the time to place lengthy training videos onto my desktop so I’m not subject to bandwidth and traffic issues while trying to study from online content.
You can find the Firefox video Download Helper at:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/
It’s well worth the time to learn how to use this great little tool. Once you do you’ll find yourself using it for a lot of different things.
To Your Success!
Cliff
Jessica
July 6, 2011 at 8:25 amDarren Rowse of Problogger and Tiffany Dow both had their accounts banned. Darren has his account restored but I believe Tiffany did not. The best move to make, like Nicole said, is to save and back up everything. Any third party site, especially if it is free, has the right to change up the rules when they want and that leaves us all vulnerable. This is one of the reasons why I strongly suggest those that are blogging to set up wordpress on their own hosting. Everything that you have worked so hard for can be taken away on these free platforms.
Sinea
July 13, 2011 at 9:52 pmI just posted my first You Tube video and posted it to my site as an intro.
Glad to find this post. There is a lot I don’t know.
John D
July 24, 2011 at 1:43 pmYep, being at the mercy of 3rd parties is really unpleasant, especially when most of the policing is done through automation. Because these sites deal with so much volume, if you get caught even as legitimate it’s pretty hard to get yourself fixed.
Scott
August 3, 2011 at 8:36 pmI would be careful about completely relying on Google for email also. I know it’s convenient and they have some nice features, but they can shut down your account for what ever reason they decide and all of a sudden, you won’t have access to your email either! I’m not saying don’t use them, but just go in with your eyes open and think about the risk.
Richard | Fake Grass
August 7, 2011 at 4:28 amI’ve noticed YouTube taking down lots a lot more videos recently for quite trivial offences… which seems odd when most of their site is made up of copyrighted material!
Down Or Just Me
August 9, 2011 at 3:10 pmThanks for the tips, Nicole! I haven’t been using YouTube (from the non-watching end at least) for very long so this was all very helpful, I wasn’t backing up my videos but I sure will now! 🙂
Laurie
Sabs
September 9, 2011 at 10:00 pmGood points. It’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. YouTube certainly has seemed to give more accounts and individual videos the boot lately. I hope there’s at least a reasonable appeal process if this does happen, since YouTube is by far the biggest video site.
Nick
August 7, 2012 at 4:03 pmGreat to know,
I have notices a lot of fitness stuff getting pulled down and now I know the reason…why do some of the most famous videos no longer appear. Is it because the owners take them down, or is it generally you tube.