YouTube and Google Woes - Not Sure What To Do

I have had a VERY busy and long day. I woke early to try and secure our family lake campsite for next year as it is super competitive to get for weekends, so you have to set up a vigil and try to be the first online / phone to get it. I was able to secure the first half of the reservation and will have to get up early to secure the second half in the morning.

I ran errands, bank, paid bills, groceries, returns, and then spent the day working in the yard. I was headed to blog for the day when I got an email from YouTube that sent me into a tailspin! 

I have been monetized on YouTube for about 9 years. I don't make tons of money on it, but before they changed their search engine to the new Google / YouTube search, I did fairly well making about $250 or more a month on my videos. 

After the change, the videos that I was getting 65,000 views a month on, dropped to no views! My top two or three videos now get no views! My income went down and down and down and was at $40 and $60 in the past six months. I am just now getting back to about 35,000 views a month and am around $150 a month in revenue the past two months which is wonderful compared to a few months back, but horrible compared to a year ago. And, it is truly sad having over 900 videos uploaded and having been uploading for ten years, to be making such a small amount!

Now, this email! I freak out and follow all the links I can find and go into my channel following instructions in several different likes off the original email they sent me saying I didn't qualify anymore for making money on my channel. 

Well, if I don't make any money, why put videos up as they won't promote them as they are all about making money! So, if I make the videos, spend an hour to list it, they won't make money on it, they won't promote it so no one will see it! That defeats the entire point of posting!  

It now takes so long to list a video that it isn't worth it unless I know I can make a little money off the volume of videos I have, verses the views I used to get! I was so distressed that I looked for a way to chat with someone as I know I have been able to do that in the past. The kicker is that you have to be monetized to be able to use the chat feature, so I thought maybe they wouldn't allow me to do that. 

With the new look, I couldn't find a way to chat. It took me probably 1/2 an hour to just find a way to chat. I finally do, and it kept saying "opening a chat" and then I could hear someone chatting but there was no chat window. I thought it may have been the browser, so I changed browsers and same situation. 

Finally, I search "chat won't open YouTube" and follow a link to a thread about that situation as there were several people having issues with that, and on that new page, there was the chat window! So weird, but apparently I am not the only person having that problem! 

When I was following links, the only thing I could find that I may not have to keep my monetization was a 2 step verification process for each time you sign in. Like that isn't a nightmare to have to do each time, but I signed up for it just to please google and fulfill that requirement. 

The wonderful "Adam" who was helping me said he looked at my channel and that the email must have been a mistake as I had all the requirements of more than 1000 subscribers and more than 4000 view hours for the year and an ad-sense account so I was good to go! 

That was a long and stressful few hours in the middle of the night for no reason! 

While I had him on the chat, I asked him what I should do about my over 800 videos that are not getting views as some of them have ranking, but just are not at the top of the search. I have heard that if I mess with the description and tags, they then become like a newly posted video and have no rank so they will show up last in searches due to me messing with the data. 

Adam verified that as true and sent me a few links talking about that. So, to recap, YOUTUBE changes their searches to match Googles, and in the process, only those people who have Google analytics and savvy on how to manipulate Google show up on searches. Thus, the videos I had that were "HOT" are now not showing up. However, they do get some views. So, now if I change them up to try and get them to have MORE views, they go to the bottom of the pile and it takes me an hour to "update" each video which is over 850 hours of work for them to not necessarily get any more views! 

YouTube should have taken age of the video, popularity of the video, views and length of time watched of the videos into account rather than just their "search" engine which basically gives favor to Google patrons. I have issues with not being able to get my blog or website viewed due to them being forwarded to a .com from blogger and Wix so I don't get many of my sites being found on google because Google doesn't like forwarded websites! 


It is a bit of a frustration with Google as they make it hard to function and even though they OWN BLOGGER, they won't monetize my pages because blogger format is so old that it isn't conducive to people viewing on their mobile devices! So, GOOGLE needs to fix the flaws in their almighty system as it is driving people out of business making me want to stop blogging and using YouTube! 

It is now after 3 a.m. and I need to upload photos and finish this up and will be getting to bed about 4 a.m. and have to be up in 3 hours to play the "camping reservation" game! The saddest part, is that NOTHING was resolved in all those hours of searching and chatting! I am where I started! 

I hope tomorrow goes a bit better than today! Stay safe and have a Blessed day!