With the utmost respect, maybe it's just your bubble is busting? I've looked at your channel several times and wow you have some really great content but you are obviously suffering from a broad focused channel. Maybe years ago it was easier for broad based channels to get noticed and your older videos seem to reflect that, but with over 17k subs.... now your recent videos are getting what... 100-300 views in 3-6 months? (My long play videos get hundreds of views in a matter of days for a month old channel.)
Why are you doing shorts btw? You're already monetized and obviously like most or all of us here, we'll never be shorts monetized. Even if they're just 1 min long videos, I wouldn't make them shorts at all.
18 years? wow... again with the utmost respect...looking over your channel as a whole (titles, descriptions, about, etc, etc) you're not even coming close to maximizing your SEO potential imop.
" Welcome. My channel is called Jungle Explorer because of my years of jungle exploration, not because my videos are about the jungle. I am a rugged individualist that loves being independent and doing things my own way. My videos are a reflection of this mentality. They cover a broad variety of subjects, from DIY Projects to Product Reviews. My goal is to make helpful videos that are informative and fun to watch. I am not a professional, but I hope you enjoy them."
I doubt any human or artificial intelligence crawling the above "data" would have a clue what kind of topics to expect on this channel.
You also seem to have the mentality that it's youtube's job to show your videos and make you money. I've been in the software, internet, business for almost 40 years now, yes back when the internet was mainly BBS. Just like it always has been with any business I've been involved with, I fully understand if my channel is going to be successful I'm going to have to put in some substantial time and financial investments to make it happen. There's absolutely no way I would expect to just release videos, decent SEO, etc, and sit back and get 1000 subs and 4000 watch hours...and say Thanks YouTube! lol.. Any successful business man in the 90s on will tell you for most businesses it's 10% product, 90% marketing when it comes to success.
Obviously you had success "back in the day" with YouTube and quite honestly if I was in your position I'd probably quit as well because it sounds like you simply do not want to put in the time or the money needed to continue your business. While your case study is indeed similar to a lot of other channels I've researched it doesn't mean you still can't succeed on YouTube, far from it. I still think I picked the best time ever to start a YouTube channel.
Stick with your old channel (leave all the old content on the channel!!) and just change the name of the channel (and description) to reflect what you're doing now and make sure each new video stays on topic of your new channel and description. I would limit the amount of diversity in your channel. At the most 1-3 main topics. And then stick to releasing 1-3 videos of each topic in a row. Don't release 3 videos, all 3 with different topics, etc, etc. This allows you to potentially ride "momentum" which is vital imop.
I could be wrong. But history has proven me right many more times than it has proven me wrong, to all those who questioned me. Most people see what they hope is true. I am a realist and I see what is, even if it is bad for me. I am the one with the most to lose from what I am saying, so you can't claim that I am bias in favor of my own position. The problem is, everyone wants to feed an illusion because the illusion is far more pleasing than the reality. What have said, has been confirmed by YT leadership, so I am doubtful I am wrong. Most people here are still dealing with what YT used to be. I am talking about what it is right now based on statements made by the YT leadership that they have intentionally and deliberately changed how the YT algo works. This is a recent change in direction and this why everyone using their old experience thinks what I am saying is wrong. They are using old, "
This is they way things used to work" information to try to say I am wrong about how I am saying "
This is the way it works now". I hope and pray that I am wrong and you all are right. Nothing would make me happier.
As far as my channel goes whether I continue or not is a very simple equation. Time + Investment = Reward. The type of content that you watch and thought was good content is very costly to create. It used to be that this kind of content had a chance on YT to earn a reasonable reward over time as EVERGREEN content. That is no longer true. You see, the very point you missed in all of what you said is that I DO HAVE 17K SUBS. What you don't understand about subs on YT is that they are utterly and completely meaningless. Subs do not earn you one red cent. Here is the thing you don't get. I continue to gain 250+ subs every month. I continue to get over 100k views a month. I did not get to where I am at by not "Understanding SEO", so give me a break. What I understand about SEO would overload most people's brains. The problem is that the type of SEO you think matters, doesn't matter anymore. It did in the past, but this is a new day. Things have radically changed. I have explained this in great detail on other threads and I am not going to write it all out again. You can trust that I am not an idiot, or you can dismiss what I say. Matters not to me.
The bottom line is this the type of content that I produced for my channel Jungle Explorer is classified as "
One-and-Done" content. My videos provide an answer to a specific question. If you do not have that question, you have no reason to watch the videos on my Jungle Explorer channel. My content is highly educational, but not highly entertaining. In the past, YT valued this kind of content. Today, it is the antithesis of what YT wants. Today YT wants "
Binge-worthy Content" not "
One-and-Done" content.
Sure, you can upload one-and-done content on YouTube, but you are NEVER going to see a return on your time and investment. I am not saying you cannot make a little, but it will never be worth your while. So, if you have a passion you want to share, HEY, go right ahead and share it. You can get subs, and you can get views, but you will never earn enough to justify making the content. You will make FAR MORE flipping burgers and McDonald's than you ever will with thousands of dollars of equipment and producing professional quality content for YT. This is where the equation I mentioned before comes in; Time+Investment=Reward.
Take my last major video for example, which is the building of a quality chicken coop. I have been offered $2,000 cash for that cop and have a respected real estate agent that sells million-dollar properties weekly say that he could sell as many of them as I can build for $2,000 apiece. The cost of materials to build the coop was $800. The time to build it (if I was not filming) would be around 8 to 10 hours. So effectively, I could build one a day and make $1,200 on each one, equalling and an average of over $100 an hour for my efforts.
Now, let's look at making the video and what my expected return on it is. I shot the video from three different angles with four cameras. Because I filmed every step as an individual scene, it took me almost 40 hours to build the coop. I ended up with over 400 GB of footage, which took over 70 hours of work on Post Production processing to edit and produce the final video. The video has a TB SEO score of 95% with all recommended SEO features completed. The video has 200 views and has earned a whopping $2.46. So the next time you get the wild idea to tell me that I "
do not want to put in the time or the money", think twice buddy boy. You have no freaking clue who you are talking to. There is no one who has invested more time and effort than me. No one!
The issue is NOT how much time and money you invest. The issue is not how high of quality your content is. The issue is not how many subs you have. The sole issue is, are you making the kind of content YT wants on their platform? I am not saying what type of content YT will
ALLOW on their platform. They will take all the content you can give them, let you work your fingers to the bone, empty your bank account and go into debt trying to make better and better content, and work endless hours on production on SEO. Sure they will take all that. And then they will promote videos made by a teenage girl with a $100 smartphone of herself making funny faces. She will become famous and rich and you will NEVER EVER EVER earn back enough money to justify all your hard work and investment.
What you don't understand is that I don't just have one channel. I have several channels in completely different genres. While I have stopped producing content for JE, I have produced content for my other channels at a rate of one per week. I already have content created for the next year for one of my channels. I do SEO for them and they all score 100% on TB in most cases. I have seen the same exact effect on those channels as I have on JE. So I know that it is not for lack of content or hard work. The problem is the type of content I create for them. Even though it is in different genres, it is all "One-and-Done" style content. Actually, JE is doing better than the channels that I am producing weekly new content for because of its evergreen content. But those channels are monetized in different ways so, they are worth continuing to do.
How many videos did you produce in December? I produced 30, working over 100 hours a week.