This will make it a bit difficult for YouTube content creators to market their products or services.
When watching videos on YouTube, users often learn about products, experiences… through clickable links to learn more about the content they just watched.
However, YouTube is changing the look and feel of the links experience on the platform, with YouTube Shorts no longer supporting clickable links in descriptions and comments. This means that if a creator links to a product or anything mentioned in the video, users won’t be able to access that product by simply tapping on them.
YouTube says it’s making changes to reduce phishing and spam attempts. The change will begin on August 31. Accordingly, as of August 10, the platform has also removed the links that appear on the banner at the top of the YouTube channel’s homepage. Previously, creators could add up to 5 links in this section for easy access to links to their pages like social networks.
However, YouTube will allow creators to display up to 14 links on their channel. The links will be in the profile section near the subscribe button, where viewers will see the first link featured and the rest when clicking on it
This is a space where creators can share information on social media accounts, websites, stores, sales websites… Creators can set up links in their Creator Studio and followers. Watchers will see them publicly on August 23.
At the end of September, YouTube will introduce how creators can easily redirect followers from one short YouTube video to another on YouTube. An illustration shared by YouTube shows a clickable link on the Short that will redirect viewers to the long version of the video
This feature can benefit YouTube creators by increasing engagement and visibility on long-form content through short videos. It also benefits viewers as they can easily find and view content that interests them.