This is not the video I thought I would be making in 2026.
The plan for this year was to make a comeback to YouTube, and post at least 1 or 2 videos a month. My channel reached 70,000 subscribers over the new year, so I was excited to be making videos again this year.
As you know there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment around software engineering, with AI making a big impact on the number of jobs available.
So, I wanted to see if it is possible to make some additional money with side projects, and show people the steps needed to get your projects from idea to revenue.
With that in mind, I set up a limited company last year to release all these new projects under, and I am in the process of migrating everything to be under this new company.
Now one of those things is my YouTube AdSense income. To be honest, it is not a huge amount right now, I make between £100 and £200 a month, but I was hoping it would grow as my channel grows, and I start making more videos again.
Unfortunately, Google had other plans.
Now, Google don't let you just convert a personal AdSense account to a business account.
You have to create a new one through YouTube Studio. So I set up a new Google account owned by my business, then went into YouTube Studio to create the AdSense account and link my channel to it.
I went through all the identity verification and everything was fine. I was a bit worried, I have heard a few horror stories of this going wrong but so far so good. At least I thought so.
The next morning I get an email from YouTube saying my partnership with them had been disabled due to “invalid click activity” on my AdSense account.
Now, I have never had any problems with invalid traffic in the past and there is nothing on my YouTube analytics to suggest anything suspicious. I have a slight increase in traffic from people coming back to my channel after the holidays but no more than I usually get which is about 3000 views a day.
I tried to appeal it with their invalid traffic form, but it got rejected.
The crazy thing with this is they don't tell you anything about where this invalid traffic is coming from or how to prevent it. Even if someone was maliciously clicking on ads to get my channel demonetised, it's not like I can do anything to prevent that.
The AdSense email basically says I am banned for life from ever monetising my YouTube channel or monetising any other channels and I won't be getting any of the AdSense revenue that I earned in December, which was only going to be £162, but in this economy it is better than nothing.
So I am in this weird place at the moment.
Do I continue making videos on YouTube, despite being demonetised and focus on trying to get brand sponsorships or have people support me on Patreon?
I should say a big thank you to my 3 paid supporters on Patreon who are Freddy, Ian, and Joe your support really does mean a lot to me.
The other option is to give up on YouTube and focus on my blog, my newsletter and making courses for a platform that actually respects it's creators.
The thing is, I do like making videos and sharing my knowledge, so I would like to keep doing it, but I would be lying if I didn't say it was a bit demotivating getting demonetized. Without the AdSense revenue it is hard to justify putting in the time it takes to make these videos.
Especially since I know that YouTube is still likely to put adverts on my videos and make money from my content when I can't.
Combine that with YouTube actively promoting shorts over long form content and all the AI slop that creators now have to compete with, it is going to be a hard decision whether to continue or not.
I know from looking at other creators, that AdSense revenue is generally a pretty small part of their income. Most of it usually comes from brand deals, but until now I have been really avoiding doing those as I know people don't like sponsored segments in videos.
So this is where I am at the moment. If this video gets seen enough then there is a small chance that YouTube will see it and lift my ban. If not then I will have to decide what I want to do and whether making videos is still worth my time and effort.
Thank you everyone who has watched my videos, I hope they have been helpful. Whatever I decide I am still going to be writing my newsletter, so if you don't hear from me on here then you can sign up to that via email or RSS.
Thanks everyone, wish me luck.
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