Move Your YouTube Channel's Google+ Linkage With This Nifty Tool

Since the introduction in early 2012 of Google+ for YouTube we have been dogged by the fact that the linkage we establish between our YouTube channels and Google+ products becomes permanent after the 14 day cooling off period.  To add insult to injury all YouTube channels created nowadays come with their Google+ product perma-linked and if we don't choose well enough we could end up regretting our choices.

Until this week moving the linkage from one Google+ product to another was possible only with the help of support.  And now we have this über cool tool which allows us to do this ourselves:

You will find a link to it in YouTube settings / Advanced of the YouTube channel you wish to move to a different Google+ product placed as seen above.

Once you click on the link you are shown a super visual interpretation of your current set-up and a box to click to begin the process:

The easy to understand interface gets even better with the next screen where you will see your choices:

If we look at this third screen you will see that I am using my test YouTube channel Skitrel Mark 5 (shown on the left) which is linked to a Google+ Page of that name (shown on the right) and have the option to link it to my Google account's Google+ Profile (with a photo of Alice) and another Google+ Page (Skitrel Mark 7, sporting its default +Page avatar) on the same Google account.  This is important-  you can only choose Google+ products which exist/are owned by the Google account the YouTube channel and its current Google+ product are owned by.  As per the little note about this on the box with the choices.  :)

There are a couple of caveats here:

1.  You cannot link to a Google+ Profile if you have deleted the Google+ Profile as seen here:

It just wont appear as an option because it doesn't exist.  And if that is what you wish to link the YouTube channel to then you would need to stop the process and go to Google+ in your Google account and create a new Google+ Profile before returning to your YouTube channel and starting the move process over.

2.  You cannot (currently) move the new style custom YouTube /c/ URL with the YouTube channel although you are not told this as seen here:

This is not entirely intuitive behaviour but if you appreciate that the /c/ URL of your YouTube channel is associated with the matching +URL and that that +URL belongs to the Google+ product you are moving from, it begins to make sense.  It "stays" with its matching +URL and is associated to the YouTube channel only where it is linked to the matching +URL using Google+ product.  Annoying, no?  Meh.

Final consideration when choosing the Google+ product to relink your YouTube channel to-  every Google+ product may only have one YouTube channel on it at any one time.  This means that if you pick a Google+ product on that bottom list which has its own channel already you will first be asked to delete it (or cancel the action of course) as seen here:

Be very careful not to delete a YouTube channel you might be super-attached to!  Recovering a user-deleted YouTube channel is not easy at best of times but once you move your other YouTube channel to the deleted channel's Google+ product- all the more confusing for everyone!

Instead-  consider moving the "blocking" YouTube channel to a different Google+ product before moving your YouTube channel to its Google+ product.  ;)  That way you keep both!

Here is a video I made about the process (I don't address the /c/ URL caveat in it as I didn't want to confuse folk but might update the video as the tool's development progresses):

Any questions please drop me a note or, better still, pop over to the fora for serious trouble-shooting.

To "Claim" Or Not To Claim (A YouTube), That Is The Question

Google terminology has never been particularly transparent or, indeed, consistent, and it is left to users to work out the meaning of terms used interchangeably.

With this blog I want to look at the terms "legacy", "channel" and "claiming".

1.  "Legacy"
As the word implies-  something which is passed down by a predecessor.  In the computer world it also defines that which is considered to be "legacy" as "outdated but hard to replace".

In regard to YouTube the term "legacy" specifically refers to any YouTube account created prior to 6th May 2009 as these were created by the no-longer existing YouTube system which Google continued to run despite purchasing over two years previously (late 2006).

That is the definition of "legacy" and I could leave it with that.  However-  should you be interested to know more:  these legacy YouTube accounts were autonomous (standalone) in that they had an email address which they used for their own recovery, their own password and a sort of control dashboard, beloved of web masters.

2.  "Channel" (versus "account")
From May 2009 onward Google implemented their own system of Google account "owned" (as in-  controlled/managed) YouTube channels and any YouTube channel created from then on automatically came with a split control in that the account side of things, ie the email address and the password, were controlled by the master Google account and only the YouTube video/community/public actions were still controlled by the YouTube channels themselves.

This is where the greatest problem with consistency is in that Google often use the terms interchangeably, even where it is not appropriate to do so.  Basically a legacy YouTube account is a pre-May 2009 YouTube account which is not yet linked to a Google account (and they do still exist) and a YouTube channel is any YouTube (pre-May 2009 or post-May 2009 vintage) which is linked to and controlled by a Google account.

But since Google had inherited these legacy YouTube account users they ran the two systems, one for legacy YouTube account users and one for Google account with YouTube channel users in parallel with each other until the 10th of January 2011.

3.  "Claiming" (another word for "linking")
Until the 11th of January 2011 it was option to "link" a legacy YouTube account to a Google account but from that day forward everyone who had a pre-May 2009 non-linked true-blue legacy YouTube had to link to even sign in.  This process is what became known as the Gaia Linking Process.

The introduction of the term "claiming" as part of the process is fairly recent and its usage is both frustrating and misleading.  While it implies that users can "claim ownership" of any YouTube (both channel and account variety), belonging, possibly, not even to themselves it is actually just a way of saying "link a legacy YouTube account to a Google account".

In short-  only a still legacy YouTube account can be "claimed" by a Google account controlled by the user with access to the legacy YouTube account.  Or to rephrase it-  only still legacy YouTube accounts can be linked to Google accounts.

Already linked YouTube channels cannot be "claimed" again.

Sigh...

Here is a video on how to "claim" (aka "link") a legacy YouTube account to a Google account), should this be relevant to your case: