YouTube has been working on providing more tools and insights into their limited monetization review process, and recently introduced “Self-Certification” to a limited number of creators. This lets you rate your videos against YouTube’s advertiser-friendly guidelines, with the goal of reducing the amount of times you see that yellow dollar sign icon on videos that are actually suitable for all advertisers. YouTube is currently rolling this feature out in stages to all creators, and when your channel gets access you’ll see a message in YouTube Studio. Continue reading for more details.

When you have access to “Self-Certification”, you’ll have the ability to fill out a questionnaire about your new video upload, which will help YouTube make monetization decisions faster and more accurately. After you rate your video, YouTube’s automated system will make a monetization decision for your video. If you disagree with the automated decision, you can then request a human review. The human reviewer will watch your video and provide feedback. If the human reviewer confirms the original decision, you’ll then be able to see exactly why your video was not approved for all advertisers - for example, “inappropriate language” or “sensitive issues” (this feature is only available to a limited number of creators that already have access to “Self-Certification”). 

If you have access to “Self-Certification”, you’ll see a new required step when you upload a new video (“Ad Suitability”, which is step 4). In this tab of the new video upload, you’ll need to rate your video according to YouTube’s advertiser-friendly guidelines.

A limited number of creators also currently have the ability to view their channel’s rating accuracy and see additional insight into the video monetization review process. When uploading a new video you may be able to see the below page, which details not only your channel’s rating accuracy but also a history of your video uploads and their monetization and review status.

It’s important to rate your videos accurately, if you consistently and accurately rate your videos, YouTube will rely on your input over their automated systems to determine your videos monetization status. YouTube has provided this helpful page that provides guidelines for exactly how to rate your individual videos in each of the 8 self-certification categories, so we recommend checking it out to help increase the accuracy of your self-certification.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to us with any questions about these new features. We'd also recommend reviewing our previous articles on limited monetization here and here, and below is a video that includes more information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK2xupRNgaU