Spam indicator
Wears a much bigger channel's name
What it checks
Whether the channel uses the name of a far bigger channel that had the name first.
The exact rule
- The channel's name, and its @handle when the checker has one on record, is compared with the names and handles of channels of 1 million subscribers or more that the checker has on record. Case, spaces, punctuation and invisible characters are ignored.
- A name shorter than 6 letters and digits is never matched, since short names are shared by coincidence.
- It fires (100%) when the bigger channel was created no later than this one and has at least 100 times its subscribers. A channel with 0 subscribers counts as having 1.
- It reads 0% when the name matches an older big channel but the gap is under 100 times.
- It is N/A when nothing matches (almost every channel), when every match is younger than this channel, when this channel's subscriber count is hidden, and for YouTube's automatic "… - Topic" channels.
Why it can point to spam
Impersonators take a famous name, sometimes with a typo, extra punctuation or an invisible character, to catch viewers looking for the original. Many then run scams or reupload content.
When it fires on a legitimate channel
Someone can share a name with a famous channel by coincidence, especially a common phrase. The age and size rules drop many of these, but not all.
How to change it
If you run the channel and the name is a coincidence, a more distinctive name ends the match: in YouTube Studio, go to Customization, then Profile, and edit the name and handle.
YouTube's impersonation policy forbids channels that copy another channel's name, picture or look to mislead viewers, including with typos, special fonts or words like "official" or "backup". If you are the channel being copied, YouTube has a form for reporting it; see the impersonation guide.