YouTube warning

**iGamingWriter** · 23 November 2014, 10:14 am

I wanted to give everyone a quick heads up as if you are hosting videos on YouTube you could easily find yourself in the same negative position I now am.

On Friday I got back from my morning swim to find this email

Originally Posted by YouTube

Regarding your account: [ThePOGG]
The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content in violation of these guidelines, and have been disabled:

"Secret Admirer Online Slots" (youtu.be/H7M6wrD-7Kc)

Everyone hates spam. Misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails designed to increase views are not allowed. It's also not okay to post large amounts of untargeted, unwanted or repetitive content, including comments and private messages.
This is the second Community Guidelines warning strike your account has received within six months. Accordingly, the ability to access this account has been disabled and will not return until two weeks after you acknowledge this message. Please review the YouTube Community Guidelines and refrain from further violations, which may result in the termination of your account(s).
For more information on YouTube's Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the help center.
Please note that deleting this video will not resolve the strike on your account. For more information about how to appeal a strike, please visit this page in the help center.
Sincerely,

The YouTube Team

I never delete emails and I've gone back through my emails a looked at every email from YouTube in the last 6 months - there was no notification of a first strike. Within an hour or receiving that I'd received a second email from them with another strike. This lead to the termination of my YouTube account.

In the first instance, as I didn't receive a first strike YouTube have not followed the terms of their User Agreement. More to the point, if they wanted me to make changes what exactly was I expected to achieve in less than an hour? In less than an hour I went from no strikes to a terminated account. In the second instance, there was nothing exceptional about these videos - there are hundreds just like them on YouTube currently. There were no affiliate links built in, just a link back to the review page they were embedded on.

Whether or not they could be considered spammy is open to interpretation - they are commercial in nature so I guess they could and the fact that there are other similar videos doesn't necessarily mean that YouTube approve of such content. As such I wouldn't really be of a mind to contest there decision. What is a major problem is that all access to my account has been rescinded. Over 2.5k videos that are embedded on my site - hundreds of hours work - are now inaccessible to me and on every corresponding page there's a black space where the video should be and if the user clicks to play they receive notification that my account as been "terminated". As a webmaster who's brand in heavily focused on user trust, this sort of message can do substantial damage.

I'm now in a position where YouTube are non-responsive through their forms, email address, phone numbers, I'm down 2.5k videos that I'll now have to remake and I have warning from them posted on my site that are detrimental to my brand. I don't predict YouTube getting back in contact or providing access to allow me to transfer these videos to an alternative hosting provider so hundreds of hours worth of work from the last 3 years has essentially just disappeared.

As it goes, I strongly suspect that someone has maliciously flagged up these videos. They weren't by any stretch of the imagination recently posted (1-2 years old) and neither were they attracting a lot of attention. I personally strongly suspect I know who did this as well - an affiliate program was in contact with me earlier last week and inadvertently revealed links between the casino they were representing and another group that's already listed negatively. The result was the casino they wanted to improve placement for ended up getting shifted to 'Not Recommended' status. As I can't prove this though I'm not going to post names. I **** a lot of people off, it could be an older grudge than that.

In summary - if you're posting basic video reviews like this, this could easily happen to you. I'd strongly advise firstly backing up your videos (I reckon it's going to cost me around ?k to replace the lost videos, not to mention the increased bounce rate/reduced conversion that will result) and I'd also advise moving to a subscription hosting service, at least that way there's a financial agreement that obliges the company to talk to you directly if things go wrong. Personally I've chosen Vimeo.

**edgarf76** · 23 November 2014, 1:20 pm

one of my youtube channels is down, there was nothing against their policy.

Visit Us For The Best Reduced Juice USA Sportsbook

**dfiocch** · 23 November 2014, 1:33 pm

Same here... WTF?
My channell is still live but two of my videos (innocent videos, just previews) were flagged as inappropriate.

WTF?

**sweetbet** · 23 November 2014, 1:57 pm

youtube is too uncertain. I think that dailymotion is a good alternative when it comes to gambling videos.

**dfiocch** · 23 November 2014, 2:39 pm

mmmmmmm... little suspect...

Just taking a look at the analytics of the two videos (from my channel) I mentioned above and:

Video 1, last 30 days: 4 views, 4 from India
Video 2, last 30 days: 2 views, 2 from India

Both flagged as inappropriate.

Now, just "brainstorming"... I'm getting tons of unwanted, ****** links from crappy websites (most of them blog spam comments on spammy India blogs).
Nicknames: Rakesha, Adithjia, Niru, Abajah... sounds from India?

Hey guys... you are breaking (REALLY) my balls...

**RacingJim** · 23 November 2014, 6:07 pm

I would definitely advise backing up all videos though, having them just hosted online like that is risky indeed with no backups. Sorry to hear your problems though, that sounds a bit dodgy like a competitor attack or whatever.

**sampendleton** · 23 November 2014, 10:53 pm

Yikes! Sorry to hear that.
On the other hand dfiocch has a very good observation.
You know, it isn't impossible. This is not that relevant to the topic but based on dfiocch's observation there are actually a lot of them all over the web. Maybe, they considered you as one of their competitor, and they see that the only way for them to take you down is to report your videos.

**iGamingWriter** · 24 November 2014, 1:36 am

Originally Posted by sampendleton

Yikes! Sorry to hear that.
On the other hand dfiocch has a very good observation.
You know, it isn't impossible. This is not that relevant to the topic but based on dfiocch's observation there are actually a lot of them all over the web. Maybe, they considered you as one of their competitor, and they see that the only way for them to take you down is to report your videos.

Absolutely agreed - had it been only me my suspicions regarding the specific group would have held up, but given the thread on AGD atm it seems this is widespread. It does seem a more generalised negative SEO attack stemming from some weak Indian group that would rather damage their competition than put together a good product themselves. Hardly an uncommon approach in this industry.

In all honesty the videos themselves don't make that much difference to me. Many of them were in need of updating and the traffic I received was less than half a percent of my overall traffic. Nothing to worry about. What does worry me is the "termination" warning on all my pages. I trade on my name and my honesty, that warning makes it sound like I've been up to something unethical. Over the weekend I've replaced most of the high traffic page videos with a temporary "coming soon" vid and the others shouldn't have too much impact on conversion.

Had YT simply politely contacted me to tell me that they were intending to close my account, or had they followed their own user terms and given me 3 strikes or even reasonable time and explanation between strike 2 and 3 I could have made arrangement to go elsewhere. YT are a free service and I certainly don't contest their right to refuse anyone for any reason. What they've done here though has been heavy handed in the extreme.

**Progger** · 24 November 2014, 2:57 am

it was so stupid!
The most Gambling videos are overload with casino links...sooner or later you can be sure you lose your youtube account....

regards

**iGamingWriter** · 24 November 2014, 3:41 am

Originally Posted by Progger

it was so stupid!
The most Gambling videos are overload with casino links...sooner or later you can be sure you lose your youtube account....

regards

As stated in my original post there were no links to any casinos in any of my videos. While my site makes money by players signing up through our links, my top priority is to get players onto MY site not casino sites.

**dfiocch** · 24 November 2014, 3:43 am

Originally Posted by Progger

it was so stupid!
The most Gambling videos are overload with casino links...sooner or later you can be sure you lose your youtube account....

regards

Sorry... who? Where?

My videos are simply VIDEOS.
No affiliate links, no promotions. Nothing.
Just previews. And YouTube itself classified them as "Adult/Gambling".
If you are not a YouTube (verified) user you have to compile the age form in order to see the the videos (18+, 21+).
So? Just a stupid man watching those videos can flag them as inappropriate.
Are you against gambling? So, stay away!
Against gambling and maybe... he was on YouPrrrron or OldMilfsDoingsThingsdotcom two minutes before...

Since I believe there is someone who is having fun as a stupid child filling of **** others links profile, to flag as inappropriate videos of others and make DDOSS attacks against others one day and the other also (I suffered 4 of them in the last two months) ... I think it is also time to stop with this crap.

I do not have time to blacken the other, I have to think about my business that takes me away 3/4 of the day!

**Progger** · 24 November 2014, 3:52 am

Originally Posted by dfiocch

Are you against gambling? So, stay away!

Im not...i lose a lot of YT Accounts...
**** happens if you not backup your videos...now is to late to cry...you can do NOTHING.

regards

**dfiocch** · 24 November 2014, 3:55 am

Originally Posted by Progger

Im not...i lose a lot of YT Accounts...
**** happens if you not backup your videos...now is to late to cry...you can do NOTHING.

regards

"You" was referred to "stupid childs", just to be clear... it was not for you

I have a backup of all my videos but this is not the point.

**Progger** · 24 November 2014, 5:20 am

Google dont link gambling...youtube is product from GG

**dfiocch** · 24 November 2014, 5:56 am

Originally Posted by Progger

Google dont link gambling...youtube is product from GG

Goggole link gambling related products under strictly circumstances (policy): site's quality, clear links to gambling addiction solutions, no minors targeting, no spam, licenses of products etc...

https://support.google.com/adwordspo.../6018017?hl=en

I'm using adwords (UK), all ads approved.

But, again, this is not the point: someone flagged thePogg's videos, mine and a lot other affiliate's videos as inappropriate (also a big, very big channel was closed for this ****** people...).

The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. (from thePogg's original post)

Again, in my case:

Box24, flagged (by someone in the YouTube Community) as inappropriate:

Proof:

Name: 2urmqsw.jpg
Views: 758
Size: 24.3 KB

Name: 2urmqsw.jpg
Views: 758
Size: 24.3 KB

Plus add from my previous post: ****** links, rich anchor text, blogs spam... all unwantend. Plus, DDOSS attacks

Someone is breaking my balls. Please stop... I have only two

Cheers!

**Gamer** · 24 November 2014, 6:08 am

In India and surroundings, there are plenty of home-made SEO companies that accept any orders to stay alive.
Perhaps, someone paid little money to them to take some "attacts".
I receive plenty of propositions from India and they are eager to do anything I want, for little money.
The World is crazy!

**Anthony** · 24 November 2014, 12:28 pm

Same thing happened to the APCW YouTube Channel. Our flagged video was several years old and all of a sudden its inappropriate, it is our first strike so the channel is still open.

The same think happened to us years ago with back to back flagging and the channel was closed. We are on our second channel and now keep backups of everything if a channel closes. YouTube is non-responsive and you can't retrieve any videos. They really are terrible to deal with and couldn't care less if you were not responsible for any violations.

**Caruso** · 26 November 2014, 2:04 pm

Originally Posted by Anthony

The same think happened to us years ago with back to back flagging and the channel was closed.

What a shame that was. There were some genuinely worthwhile videos there, far from the usual industry spam **** standard. I actually transcribed one little monologue Todd gave about eCOGRA. The original video is now gone.

If you two had told me you weren't backing them up I'd have bought an external hard drive for $100 and done it myself. LOL.

**grem** · 26 November 2014, 4:11 pm

Now it seems obvious SEO attack. So only if we can find which company paid for this service.

**webanalysissolutions** · 26 November 2014, 4:34 pm

Originally Posted by Progger

Google dont link gambling...youtube is product from GG

Or.... Google doesn't like gambling because Google hasn't yet worked out how to maximise profits from the 2nd most profitable industry on the web, and wants to stop all others from making money so that it can bag massive profits in years to come

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