As a new revelation made by some creators, YouTube has a publicly available code that reveals insights about individual channels P-Score, video ratings by YouTube and much more. YouTube has removed part of its publicly available code to ensure maximum privacy and to stop data from falling into the wrong hands.
P-score is an abbreviation for the Preference Score, which is used by YouTube as a proprietary measurement. It is because of this measurement that YouTube surface popular channels on its platform. YouTube measurement relies on five key areas, which are:
Popularity: It looks for the “watch time” that a creator is bringing in.
Passion: It checks how much YouTube users are engaged with the content.
Protection: It sees for the content’s advertiser friendliness.
Platform: It reviews the platforms on which the content is being watched, for instance, on phones, TV or other devices or websites.
Production: It depicts the quality of the content that is being posted on the channel.
YouTube’s P-score is a significant factor that decides if the content will surface on YouTube or become Google’s preferred. If a channel’s falls within YouTube’s top 5% then it will automatically rank well thus bringing more revenue through AdSense Program and gaining more profits; however, less than 5% means no ranking.
YouTuber’s have demanded transparency from YouTube who worries that YouTube’s algorithm is letting their content pass by for some unapparent reasons. Major content creators such as Bowblax, Optimus, Nicholas DeOrio, and reporter Josh Pescatore looked into YouTube’s viewable code to understand how they rank content on their website.
Apart from it, YouTubers Union have also asked YouTube to suggest how they can improve their content and make it more viewable to the 2 million active users.
The P-scores were mentioned under the ContentLabelRating section. Along with P-score, the rating of the video was also presented with X, Y to G, PG, Teen, Mature, and most mild and family-friendliest labels.
From the creator’s perspective, X rated videos were age-restricted and demonetized. The creators also found “READ_ON_BRAND_SAFETY_ADS_THROTTLING” and “FEATURE_VIDEO_IS_THROTTLED_FOR_OVERLAY” in the ContentLabelRating section on every Teen or above video.
The creators suggested it shows that YouTube’s throttling is divided into brand safety throttling and feature video throttling that restricts ads on the prior one and restricts from recommending YouTube video in the later one.
Despite this, some of these videos were still monetized showing that they don’t block out all the advertisements at all. Also, the P-score also varied geographically, which was a factor to look upon as well.
Apart from it, some top celebrities such as Will Smith, PewDiePie, etc. had excellent P-scores showing that YouTube manually gave high P-scores to these channels assuming that advertisers will like them. There were many other channels as well whose P-scores captured the attention of the creators.
The creators have suggested that they have no idea how YouTube gives P-scores to the channels and how they rank on the platform. As soon as the creators published their reports, YouTube removed the ContentLabelRating section from the pages. YouTube denied sharing information about how they do throttling and rate content on the platform.
When YouTube was asked as to why they removed the section, they commented that YouTube does not like to share the content ratings with the channel or the creator. To become eligible to rank on YouTube, everyone has to follow the Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines.
Read next: YouTube Enables Auto-Playing Videos In Subscription Tab
What is P-Score?
To understand the whole story, it is important to understand what p-score really is.P-score is an abbreviation for the Preference Score, which is used by YouTube as a proprietary measurement. It is because of this measurement that YouTube surface popular channels on its platform. YouTube measurement relies on five key areas, which are:
Popularity: It looks for the “watch time” that a creator is bringing in.
Passion: It checks how much YouTube users are engaged with the content.
Protection: It sees for the content’s advertiser friendliness.
Platform: It reviews the platforms on which the content is being watched, for instance, on phones, TV or other devices or websites.
Production: It depicts the quality of the content that is being posted on the channel.
YouTube’s P-score is a significant factor that decides if the content will surface on YouTube or become Google’s preferred. If a channel’s falls within YouTube’s top 5% then it will automatically rank well thus bringing more revenue through AdSense Program and gaining more profits; however, less than 5% means no ranking.
YouTuber’s have demanded transparency from YouTube who worries that YouTube’s algorithm is letting their content pass by for some unapparent reasons. Major content creators such as Bowblax, Optimus, Nicholas DeOrio, and reporter Josh Pescatore looked into YouTube’s viewable code to understand how they rank content on their website.
Apart from it, YouTubers Union have also asked YouTube to suggest how they can improve their content and make it more viewable to the 2 million active users.
What did Creators Found?
Creators looked into the p-score where they found that protection scores of each of the YouTube channels were labeled differently. So, they started looking at multiple videos and found that almost all YouTube videos have a code that can be viewed easily.The P-scores were mentioned under the ContentLabelRating section. Along with P-score, the rating of the video was also presented with X, Y to G, PG, Teen, Mature, and most mild and family-friendliest labels.
From the creator’s perspective, X rated videos were age-restricted and demonetized. The creators also found “READ_ON_BRAND_SAFETY_ADS_THROTTLING” and “FEATURE_VIDEO_IS_THROTTLED_FOR_OVERLAY” in the ContentLabelRating section on every Teen or above video.
The creators suggested it shows that YouTube’s throttling is divided into brand safety throttling and feature video throttling that restricts ads on the prior one and restricts from recommending YouTube video in the later one.
- Also read: Uploading the Same Video 1000 Times on YouTube Lowers the Quality to Minimum: Check Out This Test!
Despite this, some of these videos were still monetized showing that they don’t block out all the advertisements at all. Also, the P-score also varied geographically, which was a factor to look upon as well.
What Kind of Content Gets High P-Score?
The creators randomly selected a diverse range of 230+ YouTube channels to check the P-scores. The creators found out that YouTube likes late-night TV shows a lot and their P-scores were great. Some of such YouTube channels included Linus Tech Tips (1012.2891), The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fellon (1039.356), CBC News (1016.2958) and others.Apart from it, some top celebrities such as Will Smith, PewDiePie, etc. had excellent P-scores showing that YouTube manually gave high P-scores to these channels assuming that advertisers will like them. There were many other channels as well whose P-scores captured the attention of the creators.
The creators have suggested that they have no idea how YouTube gives P-scores to the channels and how they rank on the platform. As soon as the creators published their reports, YouTube removed the ContentLabelRating section from the pages. YouTube denied sharing information about how they do throttling and rate content on the platform.
When YouTube was asked as to why they removed the section, they commented that YouTube does not like to share the content ratings with the channel or the creator. To become eligible to rank on YouTube, everyone has to follow the Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines.
Read next: YouTube Enables Auto-Playing Videos In Subscription Tab
