Google Preferred is a

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

program that allows advertisers to pay to place their ads on high-performing videos on the site. The program divides YouTube's most popular channels among 18- to 34-year-olds, comprising the most popular 5% of content on the site, into twelve categories. Its purpose is to signal advertisers that they can trust a given channel in the program to produce high-quality content.

History

Google Preferred was announced at Google's 2014 Brandcast on April 30 in response to complaints from marketers that it was difficult to reach top-tier channels. It was also introduced in an attempt by YouTube to increase

artificial scarcity Artificial scarcity is scarcity of items despite the technology for production or the sufficient capacity for sharing. The most common causes are monopoly pricing structures, such as those enabled by laws that restrict competition or by high fi ...

and ad revenue. In March 2015, after Google Preferred proved highly successful in its first year, YouTube decided to keep using Google Preferred. They implemented some minor changes to the program, however, such as reducing the number of categories from fourteen to twelve. The program was also expanded to include other countries besides the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, including

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. In January 2018, stricter requirements were set, under which videos eligible for the program would be "manually curated", and only videos that meet YouTube's guidelines for advertiser-friendly content would be eligible. The changes came in the wake of controversies affecting YouTube's advertising platform in 2017, including the appearance of ads on content deemed objectionable to advertisers, as well as a recent controversy surrounding

Logan Paul Logan Alexander Paul (born April 1, 1995) is an American media personality, podcaster, actor, and professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand, but is inactive due to a knee injury. He has over 23 m ...

's "suicide forest" video (which caused him to be removed from the program). In August 2018, a report was published on fake video views which contributed to the concerns around YouTube's reputation and the need for a more advertiser-friendly product. In May 2020, Google Preferred was rebranded as "YouTube Select" and phased out by the end of 2020.

References

External links

Information about Google Preferred
at Think with Google YouTube Online advertising services and affiliate networks Preferred 2014 introductions Marketing companies established in 2014 {{Advertising-stub