YouTube Duplicate Content (How It Affects You)

Did you know that YouTube is removing channels from the YouTube Partner Program if they produce duplicate content on their channels?

Watch the video below to discover what duplicate content is, how it affects you, and what to do if your channel has been removed from the YouTube Partner Program for duplication.

What is duplicate content?
This is content that’s been generated automatically by different softwares. For example, there’s software that takes the same video and uploads it to multiple channels. A person might do this to manipulate the rankings and not help users.

YouTube Employee (Barbara): Do you have hard examples of these?

YouTube Employee (Harris): One category that comes up a lot is stuff that doesn’t seem to be original that’s maybe being pulled in from other places. It’s not always obvious what’s going on, it could be an auto-generated voice, or viewers that are just text and we’re not sure where that text came from. We’ve seen stuff that seems to be auto-generated, animation, or just a really basic kids game being played, or something like that without a lot of additional content or narrative around it.

Herman Drost:
1. Duplicate content is intended to manipulate the search engines and not help the users. Google takes actions on such content, and this includes text that makes no sense to the reader which may contain search words. Somebody has got some software that they want to get quick rankings, lots of views and lots of subscribers by uploading content that has the search keywords in it but the content makes no sense to the reader.

2. Content taken from third-party sources but the creator is offering no narrative. For example, if you offer narrative to a video you’re reacting to, that’s fine.

3. Content is uploaded by multiple users. For example, you might take the same content from somebody else’s video and upload that video as your own, which means you’re not the original uploader, and therefore your channel may be removed from the YouTube Partner Program.

4. Content uploaded in a way that’s trying to get around the copyright tools. For example, you might use copyright music in your video that’s not allowed by the original creator. As a result, you might get a copyright strike on your video. I recommend getting permission from the original creator or using copyright free music from YouTube. If you do this, you won’t get in trouble. Who does this affect? It affects those people that are already in the YouTube Partner Program, as well as those people that are applying for the YouTube Partner Program.

YouTube Employee (Barbara): What about reactions or offering commentary because that’s something that at least I personally have seen all over YouTube. How does that fit in with what you’re saying here about duplication?

YouTube Employee (Harris): Absolutely. That stuff is super important to YouTube and really great for the audience. If creators really are adding that value, they’re adding a narrative, there’s commentary there, there’s discussion around it that’s coming from them, then that’s okay.

Another category you hear about is duplication. This refers to content that’s coming from other sources where the creator really isn’t adding much to it. That could be videos from other platforms, or it could be TV content, it could be other stuff like that, or even we talked a little bit before about auto-generated stuff, we see some of that in this category.

How do you avoid duplicate content on your channel?

  1. Add commentary to the video, or show your presence in the video.
  2. Link back to your channel from your website.
  3. Provide more context in your video and in your channel descriptions.
  4. Make sure your content conforms to the YouTube Partner Program policies. Make sure it also conforms to the YouTube Community Guidelines and the AdSense policies if you’re monetizing your channel.

Let’s take a quick look at YouTube’s Community Guidelines…

Nudity or sexual content, harmful or dangerous content, hateful content, violent or graphic content, harassment and cyber bullying, spam, misleading metadata and scams, threats, copyright, privacy, impersonation and child safety. If you violated YouTube Partner Program policies, Community Guidelines or AdSense policies, you may be removed from the YouTube Partner Program.

YouTube Employee (Barbara): Could you cover why we might say no?

YouTube Employee Harris: Sure. Yes. There are two primary areas that the team is coming across. One is a little bit more intuitive, it’s just looking at whether the content on the channel is appropriate for ads. Obviously, advertisers have a lot of concerns about what their brand shows up next to. If the majority of a channel contains content that isn’t brand safe in that way, likely we won’t accept it. That’s the first one.

The second major area that people might know less about, so it’s important we talk about it, is where you get a response that refers to duplication. What’s going on there is we want to make sure that creators can get rewarded where they’re really putting their creative energy into their content, and that there’s really quality stuff for the audience.

What should you do if your channel has been removed from the YouTube Partner Program for duplicate content?

YouTube Employee (Harris): You can reapply in 30 days and generally give you the reason that the application wasn’t accepted and think about changing your content strategy a little bit, so that it meets the requirements that the team is applying.

Once you identify the duplicate content, remove it from your video. You can reapply after 30 days. YouTube will review your application in your channel again.

Here are some important things to keep in mind.

  1. Monetizing third-party content.
  2. You can monetize third-party content if you have commercial rights to that content, and you add value to that content in some way. This can include high-quality editing, adding commentary, or your own narrative.
  3. Demonetization. If your channel gets removed from the YouTube Partner Program, you’ll no longer be able to monetize your channel. This means you’ll no longer be able to generate revenue from AdSense ads being displayed on your videos.
  4. Superchat disabled. If your channel has been demonetized, you’ll no longer be able to receive superchat donations.

What if you want to generate revenue from your YouTube channel but don’t have monetization enabled because you don’t meet the requirements of the YouTube Partner Program of 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers?

Don’t worry, watch this video on 7 alternative ways to generate revenue from your YouTube channel.


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