Are there any Amazon.com Affiliates here? What are you doing about the new rules?

[Jungle Explorer]

So amazon.com just put out a new set of rules requiring that there be a "Prominent" Affiliate Notice next to any and all links. How are you dealing with this in your videos?

 

[Jungle Explorer]

Guess I am the only one.

 

[KatyAdelson]

I've removed mine from my video descriptions...I have one webpage that has them all, and I state that they are affiliate links -- I hope that's enough!

 

[Jungle Explorer]

I've removed mine from my video descriptions...I have one webpage that has them all, and I state that they are affiliate links -- I hope that's enough!

I just added a universal statement at the beginning of the description using the Bulk Edit function. The statement says:

"This video may contain affilate links."

Until I have clearer instructions, this statement should be enough to show that I am trying to abide by the "Prominent" (Amazon) and "Conspicuous" (FTC) requirements.

Unfortunately, the side effect of adding this statement to the descriptions of hundreds of video has resulted in the loss of over 6K views and earnings over the past two weeks. During a time where historically, my channel has experienced the highest level of growth, I am now losing ground.

When people question why we do not like these new ridiculous laws that these stupid bureaucrats come up with, THIS IS WHY? I causes us endless hours of hard work and hurts our business, costing us money.

 

[Tito Tims Videos]

Unfortunately, the side effect of adding this statement to the descriptions of hundreds of video has resulted in the loss of over 6K views and earnings over the past two weeks.

I fail to see how adding a line to your description would cost you views - especially I do not think most people even look at the descriptions...

 

[Graphic Designer]

I've noticed that doing bulk edit results in a drop in massive drop in views on my other channel, lasting for a few days. Even something as simple as adding or removing a word from the description of a few videos. I am guessing that when that happens, the YT algorithm has to reassess each and every video where the edit happened and compute the video's new ranking. But the algo should only take seconds to compute that, so I a not sure why the consequence lasts for days.

 

[Jungle Explorer]

I fail to see how adding a line to your description would cost you views - especially I do not think most people even look at the descriptions...

Every word in your description is part of the SEO of your video. YouTube uses this SEO to rank your video and decided where you show up in the results. When you make an edit to a video's description it causes your video to be reevaluated by the YT servers and it will affect your ranking. Everything affects your ranking, and your ranking affects where your video shows up in the search results and recommendations. YT has analyzed what the video is about by reading the Captions and also the objects that appear in the video. If you add words to your description that line up with what youtube already knows about your video, then it may improve your video's ranking a little. But if you add words to your description, like an FTC disclaimer, that have nothing to do with the content or subject of your video, then it will hurt your video's ranking. Now, if you make a modification across your whole channel and hundreds of videos (like I did) to add a new Amazon.com or FTC required disclosure, it will not only lower the ranking of each video, it will affect the ranking of your whole dang channel.

Does this help you understand it a little better?

 

[Jungle Explorer]

I've noticed that doing bulk edit results in a drop in massive drop in views on my other channel, lasting for a few days. Even something as simple as adding or removing a word from the description of a few videos. I am guessing that when that happens, the YT algorithm has to reassess each and every video where the edit happened and compute the video's new ranking. But the algo should only take seconds to compute that, so I a not sure why the consequence lasts for days.

See my response to TITO above.

 

[Jungle Explorer]

I am going to watch this evolving situation with the affiliate links on YouTube. I see a lot of creators not even addressing it. If things get to risky, I am going to just pull on my direct to Amazon links off and replace them with links to my own website where I will create ad pages that lead back to amazon, as sort of a Pass-through system. This way, I won't have to worry about disclaimers on YT, because I will not be posting any affiliate links. On my own website, I already have three levels Conspicuous, Clear, and Prominent disclosures that automatically appear on all pages, so once a person lands on my ad page, they will have been dually notified. It will be a lot of work to start off with, but once it is done, it will be easy to continue down the road.