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Guides for people who actually publish
Practical walkthroughs on tags, trends, rankings and monetization — each one tied to a tool you can open for free, with no login.
Articles
Channel data11 min read
YouTube Statistics, With Sources
YouTube statistics with a primary source and a check date on every number, three measurements of our own - subscriber rounding across 559 channels, view-counter cadence, and like rates across 1,152 videos, and the widely quoted figures that no longer trace to anything.
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Thumbnails5 min read
YouTube Thumbnail Size and Specs
The YouTube thumbnail size is 1280 x 720, under 2 MB. But thumbnails display at around 360px wide, and designing for that is what actually earns the click.
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Branding6 min read
YouTube Banner Size and the Safe Area
The YouTube banner size is 2048 x 1152 pixels, with a 1235 x 338 safe area visible on every device. Why banners get cropped, and how to design around it.
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Monetization7 min read
YouTube Monetization Requirements
The YouTube monetization requirements for both tiers, what valid public watch time excludes, how to check your progress, and why buying watch hours fails.
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Embedding6 min read
How to Embed a YouTube Video
How to embed a YouTube video on a website, in PowerPoint and elsewhere, plus privacy-enhanced mode, the parameters that still work, and the page-speed cost.
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Metadata4 min read
YouTube Chapters and Timestamps
How to add YouTube chapters: the exact timestamp format, the four rules that silently invalidate the whole list, and what chapters do for retention.
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Metadata4 min read
How to Write YouTube Titles
The YouTube title character limit is 100, but titles truncate near 60. The patterns that work, where clickbait stops paying, and what wastes characters.
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Availability5 min read
Why a YouTube Video Is Unavailable
Why YouTube says a video is unavailable: deleted, private, region-blocked, age-restricted or removed. How to tell which, and how to check country availability.
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Channel data5 min read
How to Check a YouTube Channel's Stats
How to check a YouTube channel's stats, which numbers are public, why subscriber counts are rounded, and what public data can and cannot tell you.
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Channel data4 min read
How to Find YouTube Channels
How to find YouTube channels by topic or name, how to find channels similar to one you know, and which channels actually count as your competitors.
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