ElPerfecto.com

While reviewing Youtube user pages, I noticed a pattern of some users being listed as subscribers over and over on many different channels.  This post shows how to identify these subscription spammers and block them.

Why would someone subscribe to thousands of other channels?  I can barely keep up with under 200 subscriptions, so how could someone else keep up with thousands of subscriptions?  If they actually watched the videos from thousands of subscriptions, there would be no time left to do anything else.

Patterns

One or all of these patterns are attributed to subscription spammers:

• User does NOT show how many subscriptions they have.

• User does NOT show the channels to which they subscribed.  Why hide this?  Maybe they are ashamed of some nasty channels to which they subscribed?  Or maybe they are selfish and don’t want to share good channels they found with others… Or, they are actually subscribing to thousands of other channels and don’t want people to notice their spamming pattern.

• Their Recent Activity does not show any video likes, favorites, or  comments made on other users’ videos.  Or, they have NO recent activity.  They obviously are not keeping up with their subscriptions.  They simply want to be noticed as a subscriber on other channels.  It’s a free advertisement for their own channel.  It’s selfish behavior.

• Comments on their page are dominated by people thanking the user for their sub.  This shows that the user’s main activity on Youtube is subscribing to channels, not actually watching videos or commenting on others’ videos.

• User subscribes to lots of channels that have no video uploads.  Silly.

This mass subscription behavior is spam.  Why does Youtube tolerate this?

Since they won’t show us their subscriptions on their channel, how can we know if they are subscription spammers?  Perform a search.

Perform a Search to Identify Spammers

Example…

site:youtube.com subscribers vorojtsov

About 5,920 results!  Not all, but many of these pages lead to channels that vorojtsov subscribed to.  This is not a perfect search, but it will reveal the pattern.

How does vorojtsov keep up with all his subscriptions, find time to eat and sleep, plus make his own videos?  Yeah, the answer is he is most likely NOT monitoring the content from his subscriptions.  If this guy is subscribing to you, he’s probably using your channel to gain more viewers for his own videos.

Another Example

site:youtube.com subscribers happyfatties5000

About 11,700 results!  happyfatties5000 is a subscription whore!

Block Spam Subscriptions

Well, I’m not tolerating it.  I have blocked those users that I believe are subscription spammers.  Their behavior is selfish and self-centered and I don’t want them using us.  These spammers could have good videos, but I don’t like them using insincere subscriptions as a way to advertise their own videos.

I value every one of my legitimate subscribers and feel honored each time someone subscribes to my channel.  I have also subscribed back to many of my subscribers but only if I actually watch their videos.  So, if I’m subscribed to you, it’s because I’m actually watching your videos.

If you keep your subscriber list free of spam, then you make it easier for your viewers to find content that they will probably like.  If someone views your channel and likes what they see, they have a high probability of also liking what you like.  So, keep your subscription lists free of spam and perhaps your viewers will value your channel.

My Criteria to Block a User

User has more than 1,000 subscriptions OR if subscriptions are hidden, a web search shows more than 1,000 results

AND…

The user never shows activity on other channels

If there is doubt about a user, whether they are spamming or actually intend to watch the videos on your channel, you could send them a message and ask them.  If they don’t reply, then they are most likely spammers.  You can base your decision to block based on their response.  For me, so far it’s been too obvious who the spammers are and I have not yet felt the need to clarify with a message to the user.

Conclusion

The subscription spammers might have good content on their pages and might be good at what they do (or they may stink) but I don’t like insincere subscriptions so the above steps help identify and block them.  By cleaning up your subscriber list and removing the spammers, you are also making your channel more valuable to your viewers.