How To Find The Link To Your Youtube Channel

In this episode I'll prove you four ways of finding your YouTube Channel's URL. I'll also explain why in that location are three types of YouTube Channel URLs, and what the query parameters are that you lot can suspend.

Just in example watching videos isn't your thing, or you're in a hurry, I thought I'd include some written instructions every bit well 🙂

Method 1: YouTube Homepage, correct after login

Right after you login to YouTube, you'll observe a menu on the height right corner. At that place should be a link to Your Channel – if you lot're lucky.

I'g proverb "if you're lucky" considering as soon as you caput over to your Creator Studio, you'll observe that this link volition be gone from the top right menu. Lucky for us, there are several other ways of getting at that channel.

Method ii: Top of the Creator's Studio

If you lot head into the Creator'south Studio, select the Dashboard tab on the left. You lot'll encounter a link to your channel at the very peak of the screen. Look for the words VIEW CHANNEL.

Method three: Custom URL

If you caput over to your Aqueduct tab on the left, yous'll see several boxes populating your Creator's Studio. Those are all related to a particular characteristic each. I of the, at the lesser of the screen, is called Custom URL.

This is a "creator's perk" and only available if your channel has artwork uploaded and at to the lowest degree 100 subscribers. You'll either see an "enable" option with which you lot tin can set a custom URL, or an "ineligible" bulletin – in which case this feature is not available to your aqueduct yet.

If you have this option, and accept enabled a custom URL, you'll see a link right there in this box.

Method 4: Hidden Carte du jour on the Elevation Left

There'southward a somewhat "hidden menu" at the top left of the YouTube Creator's Studio. Expect for the three piddling lines next to the YouTube icon. Click it and you'll see a menu overlaying the left part of your screen. The second option, underneath the word Home contains a link to your channel.

YouTube URL Parameters

When y'all finally become concord of your (really non easily accessible) YouTube Channel URL, you may notice information technology looks something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/aqueduct/UCMhv8E4GMw6erC-9iiYtNFg?view_as=subscriber

See that parameter at the end, subsequently the question mark, "?view_as=subscriber"? That's NOT part of your URL. You can – and should – trim that off, including the question mark.

This is what nosotros phone call a "query parameter". It lets you preview your own channel as a company who has either already subscribed, or someone who has not however subscribed (in which case, yous'll encounter a red SUBSCRIBE push). Try it out past replacing the part after the question mark with "view_as=public". Not merely volition the red SUBSCRIBE button appear, simply the site will besides brandish your channel trailer.

To stick with the in a higher place instance, the YouTube URL should wait similar this (without the query parameter):

https://www.youtube.com/aqueduct/UCMhv8E4GMw6erC-9iiYtNFg

Make certain to include all characters when you share this URL, otherwise your channel won't show upwards properly.

Wait! My URL looks totally different… what gives?

When y'all explore all these options, you might find that the URL to your channel can look very different. In fact, there are three different types of YouTube Channel URLs:

Legacy URLs (similar https://youtube.com/user/wphosting)
Standard URLs (like https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMhv8E4GMw6erC-9iiYtNFg)
Custom URLs (like https://www.youtube.com/c/WPGuruTV)

All these are valid and lead to the aforementioned channel, but there are celebrated reasons for how those versions came about. Here's a brief history lesson.

Legacy YouTube Channel URLs came about when YouTube was founded in 2005. Dorsum in those days, users could simply have a single channel, which was tied to the user'south profile, and hence their user name. If yous wanted a 2d aqueduct, you had to create a 2nd user ID.

This changed a few years later Google had bought YouTube in 2006 when they integrated YouTube with other Google services. For a while y'all could use both your Google ID or your legacy YouTube ID to login, only at some bespeak only the Google ID was allowed for logins. With information technology came the power for us to create several different channels under a single ID.

Those older channels can still be accessed using the above formula and the original channel URL.

Standard YouTube Channel URLs were introduced when Google made it possible for us to create channels separately from our Google IDs. Much similar single video ID's, each aqueduct is now assigned a massive string of letters and numbers. The good news is that YouTube won't run out of channel ID's anytime before long, however a random string of 24 characters is a little hard to think, and a tad ugly when it'southward printed onto business concern cards. It's fifty-fifty worse that the 11 random characters our videos get when we upload one.

Because of several user complaints, they've also introduced the Custom YouTube Aqueduct URL. This is something of a (relatively ugly) vanity URL, which we can alter to something of our own liking.

At present you know why there are so many dissimilar types of channel URLs.

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