Why I Got Paranoid About Inauthentic Content
YouTube's flagging a lot of content is inauthentic recently, and I've gotten a little paranoid? I'm like, ah, what do I need to do to make sure I'm safe? So I've researched, I've watched other videos, got summaries of other videos, and checked my own content, and I'll give you here everything I've seen to support this research process. Because the last thing I want is to get demonetized or to get some silly inauthentic content flag on my content, and I don't want the same for you either.
Faceless Channels Are the Easy Way to Get Flagged
Some of you in the comments have asked like, hey, I see these faceless channels blowing up. To me, one of the easiest ways to get flagged for inauthentic content is doing a faceless channel that you've seen somebody else doing and trying to copy that, so don't do that. One of the easiest ways I see to make sure your channel is authentic is to put your face on the videos like I've been doing for 15 years now. Put your face on the videos so that you can see there's a real human involved in the creative process, and then be yourself. Don't just read a script. Talk offline.
If you want to see how I keep my own videos human across every channel, I walk through my whole approach in my my YouTube Coaching playlist.
Put it off the top of your head. One of the worst things for inauthentic content, which also covers repetitive content. So what you're at risk of, if you use AI to generate a script for you or use AI to generate your whole video or to generate significant pieces of your content, and even if you're using your own voice, you just read that, then what you're looking to do is avoid having your video be very similar in the transcript and in the visual images to what is seen elsewhere on YouTube.
Skipping Third-Party and AI-Generated Footage
Another thing I do is I avoid using any footage from any third party sources. I don't use AI generated videos, stock videos, and I just put like backgrounds. I generate like a background like this with YouTube or with, AI. I use that to generate a background to assist my workflow so that it looks a little more interesting. But then I put my face on top of it. I talk, I get around, I share, and you can tell this is very human content. So the big thing with inauthentic content is just say no. No to creating any problematic content that would trigger that. It looks like the worst kinds of content you can create right now are stuff that's fiction and that's all generated by AI.
So if you're using like generated AI stories, which I saw these before they put all this in and I was so annoyed. I'm like, who's actually watching this crap? And I'm so glad they've cracked down on it because that's good for all of us. Now, if you do want to generate some fiction and you like it and you enjoy reading it, you need to make it unique. Like just trying to generate fiction and then have an AI voice read it is risking the flag. If you're getting out here and talking yourself and putting your face on your videos, you should be good. But if you're putting a faceless channel out, you're using AI voices and you're using AI generated text, then YouTube's in a position to flag you.
How My Crypto Channel Got Too Repetitive
Now, even if you are being a human, I'll show you on my crypto reviews channel. I got a little paranoid yesterday because while I was using a template for my videos, like every title was, this crypto and then a review. And I even had gotten into like putting these coins. So I stopped doing these, like even these, even though I've got my face on these, I used the same 10 questions for each crypto, which I thought was good to standardize my process. And probably this would be fine because I'm talking about a different coin. But I was then also using a Word document in the background to some of these videos to show, the answers to the questions, which I had asked, then the AI had output.
I ended up cleaning that channel up and rebranding it entirely, which I explain in Jerry Banfield Crypto Reviews is Now Jerry Banfield Money.
And then I had went through and talked through those answers. I didn't read them verbatim, but I talked through them out of my own knowledge. But even that format, I was like, okay, this is getting to the point where I could risk getting flagged for repetitive content because my titles were all looking similar. My thumbnails were starting to look very similar. So the baseline, and especially like here, you can say I recorded three videos in a row, all in the same shirt also. And what you don't want to do is have your videos just look like a content factory. This is important before monetization. So when a reviewer comes along and they quickly scan your channel, because what I see a reviewer's only going to take, like if you're, like this channel is getting close to getting monetized, it should be monetized in the next week or so.
When a reviewer scans it, I want them to see that there's a real human cranking out this content. Now having my face on that makes that very easy. And then changing up the different kinds of thumbnail backgrounds. And what I did, I went through and changed all my titles up. Google Gemini asked me, it said I should change all my thumbnails up too. And I'm like, but I already recorded the video. So I don't know if that makes sense, but going forward, I'm going to generate some different kinds of thumbnails so that my thumbnails backgrounds don't look exactly the same. I'll change my shirts up a bit more to show that, I'm reviewing this stuff on a different day.
But you can see, there's different shirts and the different videos and that's what you want. And this is important for maintaining authenticity over time too, because it can be very lucrative to just, like with my crypto channel, I get a review template. It's very easy to just crank them out over and over again, but you don't want to be so robotic that then if someone looks at your channel and reviews it, or the AI looks at it and says, oh, well, this person's just cranking out just a content factory. You need to genuinely add value. One thing I've done too, is slow down my production a little bit.
I, at one point I tried grinding out two of these a day. And while in the short term, I was getting more views doing that. It also was making me take shortcuts to try and just, just, you can see these two thumbnails were generated in the same basic workflow where they're so similar. And that's what you don't want. Now having just two of these like this, or three that all kind of run together is fine. But when you look over my videos, you can see there's, there's clearly a significant amount of differentiation here. My question is when you look over your videos, are you able to see that? If you'd like a second set of eyes before a reviewer ever gets there, you can set up a call with me and we'll go through your channel together to make sure it reads as authentic, human content.
Using Gemini to Audit Your Own Content
Now, another tool you can use to help look at your content and see if it's authentic or not, is you can go into Gemini and what Google AI, the Google's AI is Gemini. And you can go into Google's Gemini and you can talk with it. And sometimes the AI is, is a bit toxic and it's way over the top. It's too conservative, but it also does, like it was telling, I'm like, well, should I just handle it? Should I draw? Should I do this? And the AI is, is knows Google's policies pretty well. And you can then share all of what you're doing. And sometimes you'll even see channels that appear like they're at a high risk and you don't know, maybe they've been flagged.
Maybe they haven't said anything about it. Maybe they're demonetized. So just because you see somebody else doing something that looks like it ought to get flagged. Like I've submitted this other guy's channel. I'm like this, doesn't this look like this should be flagged, but then his channel might not be monetized. I don't know. Maybe he got demonetized. I like getting income every month from YouTube. I like staying monetized. And therefore one thing you can do is show your content to Gemini, which I did when I started to get, see so many people demonetized for inauthentic content. I went into Gemini and I took pictures of my crypto channel and I showed it, I started off with this kind of prompt.
I'm like, is this at risk of being repetitive? So if you look at my content before I changed my thumbnails, now this looks a lot more repetitive. Doesn't it? This is, I went in and told Gemini, here's my crypto Pi network, crypto review and price prediction, Flare network, crypto review and price prediction, SUI, crypto review and price prediction, Stell Lumens, crypto review and price prediction, Cardano, crypto review and price prediction. Okay. See now that looks a lot more problematic. If you, if you see these thumbnails and these prices, and then you see the titles all the same, even though my face is on there, it starts to look a little robotic.
So I then gave, I put all this into Gemini. I asked it the question and it says, now sometimes Gemini is, is goes extreme. It will go one end and you can see here, it says, the template trap and the AI generated elements, but then the strengths. You're not faceless and you have original commentary. So Gemini recommends vary the visuals, break the template, dynamic intros, update the metadata. And that's what I did. I went through and updated all the titles, subscriptions already were coming out unique every time. And then you, this is just to be prepared prior to monetization. So Gemini is a great tool.
I lean on Gemini alongside a couple of other AI tools every day for this kind of feedback, which I cover in I Pay for Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini for God-Mode Business Advice.
If you have Google policy issues generally, and you're wondering what to do, you can talk it out with Gemini. Just know though, it can be a bit of an extremist. Sometimes it'll go all the way one way and then go all the way the other way.
Mixing Up Thumbnails and Titles Without Going Overboard
With my YouTube coach channel here, you can see I've made sure now some of these thumbnails like this one, and then this one looks similar, but I then do sometimes I'll just manually take a screenshot like for my background here, or for this one, I filmed a video not even directly in my studio. So you want to just keep making sure you don't use the same format over and over again, especially in your titles and then your thumbnails. You don't want all your videos. Like if I did all my videos with this red on one side, green on the other, my face in the middle, and all my titles look the same, that would be more problematic.
That said, there is a delicate balance with not being overly paranoid. And I have a hard time with that sometimes. Because if you look at what everybody's getting demonetized for, and all the issues, this guy got demonetized for hate speech. I know how that is. They're not on YouTube, but on another platform. And then, then this person is getting demonetized for doing animated content that sometimes you can really go down a rabbit hole.
Human-Made Content Usually Has Nothing to Worry About
And most of the time, though, if your content is human made, and you are just speaking off the top of your head, and you're not just copying other people reading a script the whole time, if you're out here having a good time and really sharing yourself on YouTube, in most those cases, you don't have to worry. If you're doing faceless channels, what's silly is too, if you do like one faceless channel, and then that gets hit with authentic content, that could potentially impact your other channels. So you'll notice all of my YouTube videos, I've got a lot of my videos that are very much me.
There's none of these channels like here's my Jerry Banfield life or see if we can change the handle on that. You'll notice like none of these are just the crypto reviews was the most formulaic. I cleaned it up. But then, I even tried I tried like doing a handwritten background. So experiment throw, do things that are drastically different. Like on this one, I did a handwritten background, where I just literally wrote this and scanned it. And then I did a handwritten background where I just literally wrote this and scanned it. And then that blends in, here's me on another content creator, here's a tutorial, here's an ICP coin.
So then these all look significantly different on my gaming channel.
Why Gaming Videos Need Transformative Commentary
Now with gaming, the key thing is to have like transparency. So again, this is why I put a huge big picture of my face when I'm gaming. And then I'm talking, I'm adding commentary, gaming videos can be problematic. If you're just playing the game, and you're not talking those I've seen people saying they got demonetized on gameplay, because they were just generic, gameplay. And like, for example, Minecraft, there's so many Minecraft videos at this point, if you're just playing Minecraft without any transformative commentary, the AI has so much Minecraft data, that you're at risk of your gameplay is so similar to somebody else's that you could get flagged.
But that's why I put my face on everything for the human touch. And that's why I talk so much is because then it obviously stands out and is different. So this gaming channel, for example, is, highly compliant and obviously a human is putting in the effort on this channel. And that's the case with all my channels, all my but the crypto reviews slipped in there. So I make all my channels to make sure it's authentic content. I've made them that way for a long time. And today, it looks like YouTube's actually rewarding that for once, instead of punishing it. This looks like the best time to be you to put your face and to speak off the top of your head.
This looks like the worst time to just be copying other people do using the same kind of videos and the same advice, we'll give a few years ago, like this seems to be the worst time to do that. So if you found this helpful, I'm Jerry Banfield. I'm a YouTube coach. You can schedule a call with me and tell me everything you want to talk about when it comes to YouTube. I find I've talked to lots of other YouTubers, both they've paid me to coach them. And I've paid for them to help me or we've just done like peer coaching. Talking with other YouTubers is really helpful to get perspective.
Mr. Beast isolated that he did that really helped him grow. He'd sit on a call with other YouTubers like all day and just talk YouTube. You don't have to do that with me, but just pop in and schedule a call. You'll notice I also went on several different tangents here. And I just talked off the top of my head because then this way, what you want is your video transcript to have a high differentiation where it's not just like any other video. This way, my video about inauthentic content on YouTube is significantly different from anybody else's. So if you want to talk to me, you can go to YouTube, inauthentic content, video flags and demonetization.
You can also book a one-on-one call with me on the call.
And then if you say all the keywords and the things you care about, the transcript knows exactly who should watch the video. And then you can be set up to get views. So if you have questions, you can just comment on the video. I answer all the right. I answer as many as I can.