YouTube recently announced some updates to its monetization classifiers and profanity guidelines, which ultimately determine whether or not your video is fully monetized and considered "advertiser-friendly". Most importantly, the company is rolling out a new monetization “Checking” icon which will indicate whether or not your video is still being evaluated to determine if it's approved for all advertisements. This is important for all channels on YouTube and can have a significant impact on your earnings, so please continue reading for more details on how to make the most of this new "Checking" icon.

The new monetization “Checking” icon is an important update for all channels that are monetizing on YouTube. When your video receives this icon in its monetization status, it means that YouTube's system has not yet evaluated your video and the video will not have ads running during this period. This is extremely useful information if you want to make sure all of your views are fully monetized, so it’s extremely important to wait to publish any videos with this new “Checking” icon until it resolves and the video ends up being either fully monetized or monetized with limited ads.

This new “Checking” monetization icon is located directly under the monetization status of a video in YouTube studio. You’ll also see it say “Ads pending” under the restrictions section of a video.

It’s likely that you may not even see these new “Checking” monetization icons as they are typically only present in the first 20-60 minutes after uploading a video. It’s important to note that if you are using YouTube’s self-certification process for your videos and are accurately rating your videos, then your videos will be less likely to receive these “Checking” monetization icons and often will go straight to being fully monetized.

The next update we’re covering is YouTube’s new profanity guidelines. Moving forward, most profanity, with the exception of slurs (derogatory words used against individual people or groups of people), won’t have an impact on a video’s monetization eligibility. What this means is that even videos with a significant amount of profanity (excluding slurs) are generally suitable for monetization.

It’s still important to keep in mind the placement of profanity in the video. The video title, thumbnail, and first 30 seconds of the video are treated a bit differently then the rest of the video, so you should try to keep those areas clear of profanity as much as possible.

As always let us know if you have any questions on these new updates!