YouTube will manually review videos with ‘limited or no ads’ for ad suitability

The news: YouTube is rolling out a feature to automatically send videos with a “limited or no ads” rating for human review, including newly-uploaded content and private videos, per a company post.

• The feature is being offered to a small number of creators, with possible plans to expand it to all creators monetizing with ads.
• After a human review, videos will be given one of three ratings: a green rating, indicating that ads can be displayed and the video can be monetized; a yellow rating, meaning the video can have a limited subset of ads; or a red rating, meaning the video is not suitable for any ads.

Zooming out: The change is part of YouTube’s broader effort to optimize ad placements and performance. The platform has made notable changes recently, including adjusting mid-roll ads to appear at natural break points.

YouTube is simultaneously giving viewers diverse viewing options, such as the new Premium Lite tier that offers ad-free viewing at a lower cost than traditional YouTube Premium.

Who benefits? YouTube, creators, and brands all stand to benefit if rollout is effective.

• If successful, this change could help YouTube clear more ads and, in turn, grow its ad inventory—which could lead to more ad revenues and offset any potential losses the platform might face from Premium Lite.
• More ad inventory means creators will have more monetization opportunities.
• Increased human assessment could give YouTube more valuable insights to consistently improve its review system.
• The move will help ensure ads are appearing alongside videos that are consumer-friendly and have guaranteed ad suitability—important as consumers care about how suitable it is for ads to appear next to certain sensitive topics.

Our take: Relying on human workers to determine ad suitability for even a small portion of videos is a massive task—and one that might be unsuccessful if YouTube is seriously considering offering this feature to all creators.

• The main problem YouTube is likely to face is keeping up with the sheer volume of videos uploaded to the platform daily. About 2.6 million videos are uploaded to YouTube daily, per SEO.AI, and a significant portion of these are likely to require what YouTube refers to as “yellow icon decisions.”
• Ultimately, YouTube’s manual review system could show measurable, positive outcomes for all parties involved—but this requires a successful rollout that isn’t guaranteed.