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BUSINESS TIPS DEEP DIVE ARTICLE YOUTUBE

YouTube’s Treasure Trove: A Deep Dive into the Personal Data Collected by YouTube

YouTube's Treasure Trove: A Deep Dive into the Personal Data Collected by YouTube 2

As one of the most popular video-sharing platforms globally, YouTube has managed to amass an incredible user base.

With over 2 billion logged-in monthly users, it comes as no surprise that the platform has also gathered an immense amount of personal data. But what kind of information does YouTube collect, and how is it used?

In this friendly-toned deep dive, we’ll explore the various types of data YouTube collects from its users and shed light on some examples.

Here’s a table that categorizes the data YouTube collects from its users and the level of sensitivity associated with each category:

Data Category Examples Level of Sensitivity
User-Provided Information Name, email address, phone number, date of birth High
Device Information Hardware model, operating system, unique device identifiers, mobile network information Medium
Usage Information Videos watched, search queries, video interactions (likes, dislikes, comments, shares, subscriptions), duration and frequency of visits, interaction with ads Medium
Location Information IP address, GPS data, device sensor data Medium
Cookies and Similar Technologies Language preferences, saved settings, browsing history Low

Please note that the level of sensitivity is subjective and may vary depending on individual perceptions and the context in which the data is used.

And if this scares you, maybe look into getting a VPN and protect your data – I use NordVPN, super cheap, super safe!

1: Types of Data Collected by YouTube

1.1 User-Provided Information When you create a YouTube account or use any Google services, you’ll typically provide some personal information such as your name, email address, phone number, and date of birth. This information allows YouTube to create and maintain your account, as well as provide you with a personalized experience.

1.2 Device Information YouTube collects data about the devices you use to access the platform, including hardware model, operating system, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information. This information helps YouTube optimize the user experience for different devices and provide relevant content based on your device’s capabilities.

1.3 Usage Information As you interact with YouTube, the platform collects information about your activity, such as:

  • Videos you watch
  • Your search queries
  • Your video interactions (likes, dislikes, comments, shares, and subscriptions)
  • The duration and frequency of your visits
  •  Your interaction with ads

This data enables YouTube to analyse trends, improve its services, and offer personalized content and recommendations.

1.4 Location Information YouTube may also gather information about your geographical location through various means, such as IP addresses, GPS, or other sensors in your device. This information is used to provide location-based services, such as localized content and targeted advertisements.

1.5 Cookies and Similar Technologies Like most websites, YouTube uses cookies and similar technologies to collect and store information about your preferences and interests. This allows the platform to remember your settings, such as language preferences, and provide a more seamless experience.

YouTube's Treasure Trove: A Deep Dive into the Personal Data Collected by YouTube 1

2: Examples of Personal Data Collected by YouTube

Here are some examples of the personal data YouTube may collect from its users:

Data Category Examples
User-Provided Information Name, email address, phone number, date of birth
Device Information Hardware model, operating system, unique device identifiers, mobile network information
Usage Information Videos watched, search queries, video interactions (likes, dislikes, comments, shares, subscriptions), duration and frequency of visits, interaction with ads
Location Information IP address, GPS data, device sensor data
Cookies and Similar Technologies Language preferences, saved settings, browsing history

3: How YouTube Uses Personal Data

3.1 Personalization and Recommendations YouTube uses the personal data it collects to provide you with a more personalized experience. This includes tailoring video recommendations based on your watch history, search queries, and video interactions. It also helps YouTube suggest relevant channels for you to subscribe to, ensuring you get content that matches your interests.

3.2 Targeted Advertising YouTube’s parent company, Google, generates a significant portion of its revenue from advertising. By collecting personal data, YouTube can provide targeted ads to its users based on their interests, location, and demographics. This approach makes the ads more relevant and useful, which benefits both users and advertisers.

3.3 Security and Fraud Prevention The personal data collected by YouTube also plays a crucial role in maintaining the platform’s security. By analyzing user activity and patterns, YouTube can identify and prevent potential security threats, such as hacking attempts or fraudulent activities.

3.4 Improving Services YouTube continually works on improving its platform and services. To do this effectively, it relies on the data collected from its users. By understanding user behavior, preferences, and trends, YouTube can make informed decisions on new features and optimizations.

3.5 Legal Compliance In some cases, YouTube may use personal data to comply with legal obligations, such as responding to lawful requests for information from law enforcement agencies or regulatory bodies.

Conclusion

YouTube’s vast user base and extensive data collection practices may seem overwhelming. However, understanding what personal data is collected and how it is used can help users make more informed decisions about their online privacy.

YouTube primarily collects data to enhance user experiences, provide targeted advertising, maintain security, improve its services, and comply with legal obligations.

As a user, it’s essential to be aware of the privacy settings available on YouTube and other online platforms.

You can manage your privacy settings and control the data you share by accessing your Google Account settings. Additionally, you can limit the information collected by using privacy-focused browsers, virtual private networks (VPNs), or even browsing YouTube in incognito mode.

In conclusion, while YouTube does collect a considerable amount of personal data, it’s crucial to understand that this data collection primarily aims to provide a better user experience.

By staying informed and making use of privacy tools, you can enjoy the benefits of YouTube while maintaining control over your personal information.

YouTube's Treasure Trove: A Deep Dive into the Personal Data Collected by YouTube

Q1: How can I manage the personal data collected by YouTube?

A1: You can manage your personal data by accessing your Google Account settings. From there, you can control the data you share, review your activity, and update your privacy settings.

Q2: What are the privacy settings available on YouTube, and how can I adjust them?

A2: You can adjust your privacy settings by visiting your Google Account settings. Some options include controlling your ad personalization, managing your YouTube history (watch and search), and choosing your data sharing preferences with Google.

Q3: Can I use YouTube without providing any personal information? A3: Yes, you can use YouTube without signing in. However, you’ll have limited access to features, and your experience will not be personalized based on your interests.

Q4: How does YouTube handle the data of children or users under the age of 13?

A4: YouTube has a separate platform called YouTube Kids, designed for children. YouTube Kids has stricter data collection policies and complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Content creators must designate whether their content is made for children, and data collection is limited for such content.

Q5: How long does YouTube retain my personal data?

A5: YouTube retains your personal data for varying durations depending on the type of data and its purpose. In general, YouTube retains your data for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterward to comply with legal obligations, enforce its terms of service, and resolve disputes. Some data, such as search history and watch history, can be deleted by the user at any time. If you choose to delete your account, YouTube will start the process of removing your data from its systems, but it may take some time to complete. Keep in mind that specific legal obligations might require YouTube to retain certain data for a longer period.

Q6: Can I request YouTube to delete my personal data?

A6: Yes, you can request the deletion of your personal data by visiting your Google Account settings. You can delete specific data or your entire account, which will remove your personal information from YouTube’s servers.

Q7: Are there any alternative video-sharing platforms with less data collection?

A7: There are several alternative video-sharing platforms with varying data collection policies. Some examples include Vimeo, Dailymotion, and PeerTube. However, it’s essential to review their privacy policies and data collection practices before using them.

Q8: How can I limit targeted advertising on YouTube?

A8: You can limit targeted advertising on YouTube by turning off ad personalization in your Google Account settings. This will prevent YouTube from using your personal data to show you personalized ads.

Q9: Does YouTube share my personal data with third parties, and if so, under what circumstances?

A9: YouTube may share your personal data with third parties in specific situations, such as with your consent, for external processing by trusted service providers, or for legal reasons (e.g., in response to a lawful request from a law enforcement agency).

Q10: What are some additional steps I can take to protect my privacy while using YouTube and other online platforms?

A10: You can use privacy-focused browsers (e.g., Brave or Firefox), enable browser extensions that block trackers and ads, use virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask your location and IP address, and browse YouTube in incognito mode to limit the collection of your personal data.

Q11: How can I access and download the personal data that YouTube has collected about me?

A11: You can access and download your personal data through Google’s “Takeout” service. Visit takeout.google.com, sign in to your Google Account, and select the data you wish to download. Once you’ve made your selection, click “Next” and choose a file type and delivery method to receive your data.

Q12: Can I opt-out of certain types of data collection on YouTube?

A12: While you can’t opt-out of all data collection on YouTube, you can manage your privacy settings and limit specific types of data collection, such as ad personalization and YouTube watch/search history. Visit your Google Account settings to control the data you share with YouTube and other Google services.

These questions and answers cover various aspects of YouTube’s personal data collection practices, privacy settings, data management, and alternative options for users who are concerned about their privacy.

Remember – If you want to look after your data, maybe look into getting a VPN – I use NordVPN, super cheap, super safe!

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can YouTube History Be Tracked?

Can YouTube History Be Tracked? 1

Privacy on the Internet is one of our bigger concerns in today’s interconnected world, and YouTube is not exempt from those concerns. Given the sheer volume of YouTube videos that are watched at any given time, and especially by any individual person, there is a wealth of information that can be gleaned from knowing someone’s YouTube viewing history.

Unfortunately, the answer to “can YouTube history be tracked?” is a resounding yes, it most certainly can… assuming you are using YouTube as a logged-in user. YouTube will still track your usage when you are not logged in, of course, but there this data will be anonymised. This is not to say it’s not tracking you in a way, but more on that shortly.

YouTube Viewing History

The first thing to be aware of when considering YouTube’s tracking abilities is that it is baked into the platform. YouTube makes its money through advertising, and the biggest selling point for online advertisers is the fact that ads can be targeted to very specific demographics because of all the information YouTube has. YouTube knows your age, gender, geographical region, interests, and more, allowing advertisers to make sure their ads are being shown to people who are likely to be interested. Naturally, that system doesn’t work if YouTube doesn’t collect information about you.

Your viewing history is the most obvious thing, of course. You yourself can view your viewing history if you wish, a particularly useful tool for finding videos you’ve enjoyed in the past but can’t find now. Of course, in order for this feature to be available, YouTube needs to keep a record of what you have watched.

Your YouTube viewing history is private, and cannot be viewed by anyone else. If you don’t want certain videos logged to your viewing history, you can always log out of YouTube before viewing them. There are some limitations to this method, however. For example, YouTube will not allow you to watch videos it has deemed inappropriate for younger viewers unless you are logged in. This is mostly to prevent children from getting around content restrictions by using YouTube logged out.

You can also clear your viewing history if you’re worried about someone using your computer and stumbling across your obsession with videos of capybara playing with dogs, but that will only affect the viewing history you see—the data that YouTube uses to decide what to recommend to you will still be there.

Non-YouTube Tracking

It is possible for your YouTube history to be tracked by non-YouTube parties, but in the vast majority of cases, this would require you to have either agreed to something or been hacked by someone.

For example, if you are using YouTube through a device that has been opted into something like Nielson tracking, all of your online activity will be tracked, including your YouTube use, but this is something you will have actively sought out and agreed to beforehand.

It is also possible for your device to become infected with malicious software that will monitor your YouTube usage, but you should be able to avoid this with common sense security measures, such as having up to date anti-virus software and not clicking on untrustworthy links.

There are also perfectly legitimate (in the legal sense, not necessarily the moral one) ways to track your usage, such as Facebook’s “Off-Facebook Activity” settings. These can be disabled by you, but if they are not, Facebook can track a number of things you might be getting up to online.

Can YouTube History Be Tracked? 2

Your Online “Fingerprint”

We often worry about our identity being out there because all of the scariest sounding forms of hacking and online fraud involve stealing our identities for something. It is possible to track you without your identity, however.

When you use the Internet, including websites like YouTube, there is a wealth of information that those remote servers have access to. These include things like the operating system your device is using, the browser, what screen resolution you have, even what fonts are installed.

While none of these things inherently give away your identity, there are sufficient variables to reliably identify a returning anonymous user. In this manner, a remote server can build up a tracking history for a user, even if that user never logs in or gives their name or any other personally identifiable information. Essentially, they can create a “digital fingerprint” corresponds to you and you alone, even if they don’t know who you are.

Now, if YouTube uses this method, nobody is being particularly open about it. However, we do know that they use browser cookies to keep track of what you’ve been watching.

Browser Cookies

Browser cookies are essentially little packets of information that are stored on your hard drive. The next time you visit YouTube anonymously, YouTube can check these cookies and see what you were looking at the last time you were there.

If you’re not comfortable with this, there are two options. You can either regularly clear your cookies so that there is no record, or you can browse YouTube in incognito/privacy mode. With cookies being stored on your computer, you are in complete control of whether they stay or go, as long as you know how to do it.

Final Thoughts

Your YouTube history can certainly be tracked, but, for the most part, the entity doing the tracking is YouTube. It is possible for nefarious parties to get into a position to track your viewing history, but in most cases, if they are in that position, your viewing history will be the least of your worries.

It should also be noted that, from a privacy standpoint, YouTube is a very different platform for children. COPPA regulations mean that YouTube cannot track nearly as much data on underage viewers as they can with adults.

For the most part, however, protecting your privacy and identity on YouTube requires the same common-sense approach that should be used whenever you are browsing the Internet or using connected apps.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Detect VPN?

Can YouTube Detect VPN?

VPNs—virtual private networks—are a great way to ensure privacy when using the Internet, as well as gain access to region-restricted content that you would not otherwise have been able to view. When it comes to using a VPN with YouTube, there are many questions arise. Things like “is watching YouTube through VPN allowed?”, and “can I inflate my view count using a VPN?” We’re going to touch on those questions in this post, but first, let’s tackle the title question.

YouTube can certainly detect VPNs, though it is not an immediate process. Detecting VPNs involves the tracking of multiple data points across many users, but it can be done, and it is in YouTube’s best interests to do it.

How VPNs Work

This being a site primarily for YouTubers, we won’t try to explain VPNs in technical detail (nor are we qualified to!) so feel free to search yourself a more detailed explanation, but a base understanding of how VPNs work is necessary in order to understand how YouTube can detect VPNs in the first place.

Essentially, a VPN is an encrypted network within the wider network that is the Internet. The data travelling back and forth in that VPN is only visible to users who are part of the VPN. Think of it as similar to entering the subway, tube, or another underground transport network of your choosing. A person watching you come out of the transport network knows you have exited at that point, but has no way of knowing where you entered.

This allows users to get around things like geographical restrictions on content since their connection is routed through the VPN and emerges at a node that is in a geographical region where the content is available. This can also help users to have a greater degree of anonymity. While you can use things like “incognito mode” in Chrome, there will always be ways in which your online identity can be guessed at—if not outright locked in—because you are still accessing the web from your computer in the same geographical location. VPNs can throw any interested parties a little further off your scent by masking your geographical region.

How YouTube Can Detect VPNs

One of the key points about using a VPN is the IP address you appear to be connecting from. That is, the IP address that YouTube thinks is yours. Many VPNs—especially free ones—use the same IP address for several users. Depending on the popularity of the VPN, there could be thousands of users connecting through the same IP address. For YouTube, this would be a big giveaway, especially if many of those users are logged in.

This can be avoided by using a VPN that will grant you a dedicated IP address, meaning you will always be connecting from the same remote IP address and you will be the only one using it. This isn’t the best option for anonymity, but it’s great for getting around regional content restrictions since YouTube can’t reliably distinguish between your dedicated VPN IP address and a regular IP address.

If you are using a free VPN service—or a paid one that uses shared IP addresses) and YouTube (most likely YouTube TV specifically) is blocking you, you can always try another service in the hope of finding one that YouTube hasn’t cottoned on to yet, but the only way to be relatively sure that YouTube won’t catch you VPNing them is if you get a dedicated IP address.

Why Use A VPN For YouTube?

The main two reasons to use VPNs to view YouTube content are regional restrictions and anonymity. Regional restrictions we’ve covered—some content is made unavailable in certain parts of the world, mostly because of licensing but also sometimes because of political matters. Whatever the reason, using a VPN can allow you to access that content. Whether you see this as an unethical practice will depend entirely on your own worldview. We’re not here to judge.

There is also a version of regional restrictions which is almost the precise reverse of what we have just described. In some parts of the world—such as China, North Korea, Iran, and more—YouTube is blocked by the government. Again, where you stand on the ethics of this is your business, but using a VPN can enabled citizens of countries that block YouTube to get around the censorship.

Anonymity is pretty self-explanatory. Some people value their privacy, or perhaps have a pressing reason why they need to ensure they remain anonymous. In any case, using a VPN will make it considerably harder to identify that person when they are using sites like YouTube… assuming they don’t log in to their account, of course.

Do VPN Hurt YouTubers? 1

Using VPNs To Inflate YouTube Views

If you peruse threads about YouTube and VPNs, you’ll invariably find someone asking about using a VPN to boost their view count. This is a non-starter for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it is one hundred percent not worth the time it would take to make any meaningful boost to your view count. If you had thousands of people working at it, you may be able to make a meaningful difference, but if you can get thousands of people to do that, why not just get them to watch your video legitimately?

Secondly, even if you fool YouTube regarding your VPN access, the platform still has ways of ensuring that every view is legitimate. If you watch your own video a thousand times, even if you do it through a VPN, YouTube will likely scrub those views from your view count, meaning you’ll have wasted your time.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, YouTube is only concerned about VPNs when they affect the platform’s ability to generate revenue. Thousands of users coming from the same IP address makes it harder to track individual users, and thus display relevant ads. A dedicated IP address gives YouTube something to track, meaning they can advertise to you even if you are technically anonymous, so they’re not likely to clamp down on that kind of VPN access.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN?

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN?

The quest for more views has become something of an art—or perhaps more accurately a science—in recent years, with YouTube experts trying to whittle out any and all means of increasing that number. Of course, the first step to being able to tease out these tips and tricks lies in understanding how everything works.

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN? – YouTube will count views from VPNs but these can sometimes be removed if they do not meet location and account checks. There are many factors that can harm video metrics via VPNs.

In this post, we’re going to be looking at the way YouTube treats views that come through a VPN—or virtual private network. As is often the case, there is no simple yes or no answer to whether Youtube counts views from VPNs; it all depends on the circumstances around the view, such as whether you are logged in to a YouTube account, and the “reputation” of the VPN network in question.

But first, let’s get a little grounding in the subject.

Best VPNs For YouTube

What is a VPN?

In essence, a VPN is a private network that operates across a public one. One way to think of a private network is your home network. If you have more than one device connected to your internet router at home, those devices form a private network that cannot be accessed from outside without credentials. Anything that happens in that network is hidden from the world, just as anything you do in the privacy of your home is hidden from the world.

Every device on a VPN will have some software that can encrypt and decrypt data. Any network traffic from those devices is then encrypted and sent over the public Internet to another device on the VPN which will then decrypt it and read it. Sticking with our house analogy, it would be a little like you and a neighbour building a tunnel between your houses so that you could visit each other without anyone seeing you.

Why Use a VPN?

The next question you might be asking is… what’s the point? Let’s stick with our (admittedly flawed) house analogy for a bit longer. Imagine we extended our network of privacy tunnels to encompass hundreds of houses across a large area. Now let’s say you were out doing a spot of retail therapy and you realised you were being followed by an assassin.

We don’t know why the assassin wants to get you… maybe they don’t like you building all the tunnels. Just go with it.

Now, you could run home, but then the assassin would know where you live. Instead, you run into a random house that is part of your network of tunnels. Now, the only thing the assassin knows for sure is that you went into that house, but they have no way of knowing where you went after that.

Of course, in this analogy, there are very visible tunnels all over the place, and it would be much easier for the assassin to figure out your whereabouts than it would for an online party to follow a user on a VPN.

As far as the assassin goes, granted you probably won’t be getting “chased” online, but you may want to avoid having your online activities tracked by the likes of Facebook and Google. Another reason to use VPNs is to access region-specific content. For example, Netflix presents you with the content library for the region you are in regardless of your nationality, place of residence, or where you signed up for your account from. That means that if you are a UK Netflix user on holiday in America, you’re going to get the US Netflix library.

So no Friends for you.

Using a VPN, you can access Netflix through a node that is in the United States, so as far as Netflix is concerned, that is your geographical location. The assassin watched you go into an American house.

Do VPN Hurt YouTubers? 1

Are VPNs Detectable?

There is nothing obvious about a VPN connection from the outside—there are no visible tunnels like in our analogy—but VPN networks can be outed over time, and their addresses flagged as part of a VPN. This doesn’t necessarily mean YouTube will block those addresses (though VPNs that are used in malicious attacks tend to get blocked), but it will change how they handle users coming from those addresses.

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN?

So, if you view YouTube through a VPN, does YouTube count those views? Firstly, if you are logged in to a valid YouTube account, YouTube won’t particularly care that you are using a VPN. Only a small amount of the data they want to track is related to your location, and with a logged-in account, they can be sure of the rest of that information.

As for anonymous views… we simply don’t know.

What we do know, however, is that if you were thinking of using this method to increase the view count on your video, you would definitely be going against YouTube’s terms of service by “artificially inflating” your view count. Of course, whether they could tie the behaviour to you specifically is a different matter. Another thing to consider is that it would take far more time to make a meaningful impact on your view count this way than it would to just grow your channel organically!

Why View YouTube Through a VPN?

Hopefully, you’re not trying to inflate your view count as mentioned above, but you may do it for other reasons. One example is to view region-specific content. It’s a relatively small number of the total YouTube catalogue, but some videos are locked out in certain regions, and this would be a way to view those. Another reason would be simple to view YouTube without your viewing history being tracked.

Final Thoughts

On balance, YouTube probably does count views coming from VPNs when those views are not suspicious. If the user is behaving like a bot or viewing the same video over and over, that may lead YouTube to decide to discount those views. The most relevant factor, however, is that this would be a terrible and ineffective way to gain views, so it’s probably not worth worrying about whether those views count.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Do VPN Hurt YouTubers?

Do VPN Hurt YouTubers? 1

VPNs—virtual private networks—are a crucial tool for anyone looking to maintain their privacy online, as well as a range of other cases, including getting around geographical restrictions on content. It would be an exaggeration to call VPNs a “popular” tool, as they are still employed by a small minority of YouTube users, but that minority still represents a lot of users. So, for the more conscientious YouTube viewer, it makes sense to wonder if your VPN-based viewing habits might be negatively affecting your favourite YouTubers.

Do VPNs hurt YouTubers? – While it can affect the YouTubers you are watching if you view using a VPN, the chances are that the effect will be relatively small.

There are two ways to look at the subject of VPNs hurting YouTubers, and that is either from the perspective of the YouTuber themselves using a VPN and then from the perspective of their viewers using a VPN, but before we get into that, let’s get a little grounding in what a VPN is.

What is a VPN?

For regular readers of this blog, don’t worry; we’re not going to spend much time explaining this precisely because we’ve explained it at length in other posts, but a little primer is necessary before jumping into how VPNs may or may not hurt YouTubers.

A virtual private network is essentially a way of hiding a network inside of the larger network that is the Internet. Any system connected to a VPN will have the ability to encrypt and decrypt data in a way that is unique to that network. This means that any information sent from one computer to another on that VPN will be unreadable to anything else that may intercept it.

This is useful for remaining anonymous while using the web because your connection will appear to be coming from the remote “node” that your request was routed through, rather than the device you are actually using, making it considerably harder to track your activity online. This is also how VPNs can help get around regional content restrictions since a VPN can make it appear as though you are requesting the content from within the region where the content is allowed.

Best VPNs For YouTube

Using A VPN As A YouTuber

There is no explicit rule that states you cannot use a VPN as a YouTuber, though there are rules against certain actions you may be using your VPN for. The main reason we’re thinking of here is using a VPN to “fool” YouTube into thinking your view is coming from somewhere else in order to artificially inflate your view count.

This is bad for two reasons. The first of those reasons is that it is explicitly against YouTube’s terms of service to artificially inflate your view count. It doesn’t matter how you achieve it, it is against the rules. You can pay for as much advertising as you want, but you can’t pay strangers or bots to watch your content. Viewing your videos yourself from an anonymous VPN address would certainly fall under artificial view count inflation, and would certainly “hurt” the YouTuber if they were caught.

The second reason it is bad is that it is an objectively terrible way to inflate your view count since the amount of effort required to make any meaningful impact on your view count would far outweigh the benefits gained.

Using A VPN As A Viewer

A more realistic concern is whether using a VPN to view YouTube might be hurting the YouTubers you are watching since there are understandable question marks over what YouTube does with views from VPN users.

For the most part, you can rest relatively easily. As long as you are using YouTube in a normal manner, YouTube shouldn’t treat your view any differently to a non-VPN user. The exception to this rule is if the VPN you are using has gotten itself a bad reputation and is automatically blocked to prevent malicious attacks. Assuming that’s not the case, however, YouTube will treat you like just another viewer. Indeed, YouTube might not even be able to tell that you are using a VPN at all.

A less direct way that using a VPN can hurt YouTubers is if you are succeeding at being truly anonymous. YouTube relies on being able to collect a good deal of information about you based on your viewing preferences so that they can serve you relevant ads. Relevant ads mean a higher likelihood of being clicked, which means a higher likelihood of generating revenue for YouTube and the YouTuber whose content you are watching.

Of course, if you are never going to click an ad on principle—or if you use an ad blocker anyway—this point doesn’t apply to you. For users who may be tempted to click an ad if it appeals to them, using a VPN to browse anonymously can harm the YouTuber in that you are considerably less likely to see an ad you like, which means you’re less likely to click. You can get around this by being logged in to your YouTube account so that YouTube knows who you are regardless of where your connection appears to be coming from. Of course, that rather defies the point if you are using a VPN to remain anonymous. Sometimes there is no solution that fixes everything.

Final Thoughts

Do VPNs hurt YouTubers? – While it can affect the YouTubers you are watching if you view using a VPN, the chances are that the effect will be relatively small.

That being said, if you are concerned but are not prepared to give up the anonymity that VPNs provide, you can always look for other ways to support your favourite YouTubers.

Liking and sharing the videos is an obvious and free way to support them, but there are usually ways to support them more directly, such as signing up to a Patreon or other crowd-funding app, or sending them a donation if they have something set up for that. Perhaps they have merch you can buy.

It’s certainly admirable to want to support your favourite creators. After all, if they can’t afford to keep making the content you love, they will have to stop doing it!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Best VPNs For YouTube

Best VPNs For YouTube

Whether you have a pressing reason to use a VPN for YouTube or you just like to maintain your privacy, you’ll want to make sure you have the best VPN for the job… or at least a VPN that’s up to the job.

This isn’t as straightforward as you might think (for reasons we’ll get into below), so it can help to know what you’re looking for. We’ll explain a little about why it matters which VPN you choose before getting into our top picks.

Why Your Choice of VPN Matters

We won’t spend valuable characters explaining how a VPN (virtual private network) works as you can easily find that information (including on this very site!), but you do need to know that a natural and unavoidable consequence of the way VPNs work is a certain degradation of things like latency and speed.

When your connection is being routed through several other locations before reaching its destination, it’s going to cause a bit of a slow down. Video is a bandwidth-hungry medium, and the slower your connection, the poorer your video-watching experience is going to be.

Latency can also be an issue if you are trying to watch live streams, as you can quickly find yourself out of sync with the video feed, meaning you are essentially not watching the stream live any more.

Now, if you are using a free or cheap VPN, you can be almost guaranteed to not get the kind of service you need to have an enjoyable YouTube watching experience. Of course, if you are going to be paying for your VPN service, you want it to be sure it’s going to deliver on what you need.

With that in mind, let’s get into our best VPN YouTube picks!

Best VPNs For YouTube

Before get into, it’s worth noting that any prices we mention are the best-case prices, which are typically the effective monthly cost when you pay for a full year up front. For example, our first suggestion, SurfShark, is $2.50 a month but only if you pay for 24 months at once. If you want to pay monthly, you’re going to be looking at $12.95 per month. Something to bear in mind. Now, in no particular order, here are our picks;

Surfshark

SurfShark is the first suggestion we’re going to offer, largely because it is the most affordable. At $2.50 per month, SurfShark is almost free, yet still offers the speeds necessary to stream video. Of course, you can’t expect something for nothing, and there are certainly areas where SurfShark is going to fall flat compared to the other VPNs on this list, but purely for use with YouTube, this is as good as you need.

It allows for unlimited connections, meaning you only need the one account for all your devices, even if you have a lot of devices. You get full AES-256 encryption, however there are question marks over the security, as SurfShark has not performed an external audit of its servers and clients, only the browser extensions running on the VPN. It should be fine for getting around content restrictions on YouTube, but we would probably use a different VPN for anything involving sensitive information.

NordVPN

If you’ve been on YouTube at all over the last few years—and we’re pretty sure that includes anyone reading this blog—you’ve probably seen or heard an ad for NordVPN. This VPN has been the subject of a mammoth advertising campaign.

Still, they have a lot to talk about. Their network consists of over 5,000 servers, making it possible to get a quick connection in your desired location when you need it. For your money, you’ll get full high-level encryption and an instant kill-switch, instantly making NordVPN a more secure option than SurfShark.

Of course, you get a connection quality that is more than capable of handling video streaming.

Best VPNs For YouTube 1

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is seen by many as the top option when it comes to the quality of service. You don’t have quite as many servers to choose from as NordVPN, but you do get strong encryption, a wide variety of protocols to choose from, and amazing reliability and speeds.

Probably the biggest con for ExpressVPN to your average YouTuber is their device limit. You can only get five simultaneous devices running on a single ExpressVPN account, so if you have a lot of devices, one of the other VPNs may be a better option.

Hotspot Shield

HotSpot Shield is the very definition of a single-purpose VPN. You don’t get much in the way of features, but you do get lightning fast (in VPN terms) speeds. If all you want to do is stream video, Hotspot Shield is likely the best choice for performance, with over 400mbps speeds. In reality, most users will be bottlenecked by their own connection rather than the VPN.

It is a very straightforward VPN to use, largely owed to the fact that there aren’t many options to mess around with. There are also some concerns about how secure it is, so you might want to keep your sensitive information off for now.

CyberGhost

While not as fast as Hotspot Shield, CyberGhost is still a very fast VPN, and with over 6,000 servers, you can be sure of a satisfying experience using this VPN for YouTube.

CyberGhost even includes a data compression tool to reduce the amount of bandwidth being used, making VPN’ing on the go a feasible option. It’s also P2P-optimised, so if you do a lot of torrenting, this could be a good option for you.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, the the speed of your chosen VPN will be the primary concern if you want to use it with YouTube. This does not mean you should disregard other concerns, however. For example, if you are going to be using the VPN for sensitive tasks, you should make sure the security is up to scratch, even if that means sacrificing some of the speed that a less secure VPN offers.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Does YouTube Track You?

Does YouTube Track You?

It seems we can’t go anywhere on the Internet without worrying about being tracked by someone. Online security is a more pressing matter than ever, with so much of our lives being online, it makes sense that we’d all be more concerned about keeping our privacy private.

Being a Google company, there won’t be many people out there who are naive enough to think that YouTube doesn’t engage in a little tracking of its own, but there are levels to that tracking. So, if you’re looking for a short answer to the question posed in this post’s title, yes, YouTube can and does track you, but if you’d like to know a bit more about what that tracking entails, keep reading.

Logged In Vs Anonymous

The first distinction to make here is the difference between a YouTube user who is logged in and one who is not. Obviously, when you are logged in, YouTube knows a great deal about you and is able to explicitly keep a detailed log of your activities. Indeed, their tracking in this respect is a feature of the platform. YouTube can’t make recommendations based on your interests and viewing history if they do not keep track of what that viewing history is! This, unfortunately, is an unavoidable aspect of using the platform. There is no way to opt out of being tracked in this regard, even if you pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads. Ads are, ultimately, the reason for tracking you in the first place, since advertisers want to serve you the most relevant ads possible.

But YouTube can’t be sure that you won’t cancel your Premium subscription in the future, and if and when that happens, they want to have all their data on you for the ads they’re going to start serving you again.

Of course, anonymous users are not exempt from being tracked on YouTube, but they have a little more privacy than their logged in counterparts. For one thing, YouTube does not have the user data that you enter when you sign up for an account, such as your date of birth, gender, and other information of that nature.

Still, YouTube (and any other platform for that matter) can keep personalised records for anonymous users thanks to their “digital fingerprint”. This is a swath of data that they can read about you, such as the device you are using to view YouTube, your IP address, what operating system you have… even what fonts you have installed! All of this information makes combines to paint a picture almost as unique as a fingerprint, and certainly unique enough for YouTube to keep tabs on you.

Again, this is all for the purpose of advertising. YouTube will try to build as accurate a picture of you as possible so that they can serve the most relevant ads. The more relevant the ads, the higher the chance that you’ll click them, and the more you click those ads, the better the perceived performance of YouTube as an advertising platform resulting in more advertisers being willing to put their money into YouTube.

Does YouTube Track You? 2

Is Being Tracked by YouTube Bad?

People have varying opinions about the ethics of companies like YouTube tracking your online activities but it’s worth remembering that YouTube is a service that—if you’re not paying for YouTube Premium—is free, but being free to you does not mean YouTube do not still have monumental bills to pay from all the bandwidth and employees and more.

Tracking the people who use their service is part of the mechanism by which YouTube makes money, which is an integral part of them being able to provide the service at all. At the end of the day, you are choosing to use YouTube, and in doing so, you agree to the way they run the platform, which includes tracking you. If you are not comfortable with the tracking, you don’t have to use YouTube.

This may seem like an impractical alternative since YouTube is pretty much the only game in town for a certain kind of content creator, but it is, ethically speaking, the only alternative to accepting the tracking you will face if you use their platform.

Can I Avoid Being Tracked by YouTube?

With that being said, what if you still want to circumvent YouTube’s tracking? Well, the first thing to note is that it is impossible if you are logged in. Logged in users will always have their viewing history and viewing habits logged.

If you are prepared to use YouTube without being logged in, you can get around YouTube’s anonymous tracking to a degree by doing things like using different devices and proxy servers. Of course, most of us only have access to a limited number of devices, which makes this a rather limited solution, but there are also virtual machines as an option.

Deleting YouTube History

You can’t control everything YouTube stores about you, but if you are a logged-in user, you can choose to erase your viewing history, which constitutes a significant part of the data YouTube keeps on its users.

To do this, head over to the Watch History on YouTube and click “See All”, where you will find a variety of controls at your disposal These include the ability to clear all of your watch history, pause your watch history (so views won’t be recorded to your watch history), as well as controls relating to search history and comments. You can also remove individual videos from your watch history from within the video page itself.

Final Thoughts

Tracking is, unfortunately, an unavoidable reality of the modern Internet. Privacy is an understandable hot-button issue, but the fact is many web services and online platforms we rely on would not be able to deliver the services they do if they couldn’t track their users in this manner.

That being said, you are not completely powerless. If this is an important thing for you, you can try using YouTube logged out and through a proxy.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.