--- title: 'Should You Change Your YouTube Channel Category? Pros and Cons' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=5m_ix2Ya-1E' video_id: '5m_ix2Ya-1E' date: 2026-07-12 duration_sec: 419 --- # Should You Change Your YouTube Channel Category? Pros and Cons > Source: [Should You Change Your YouTube Channel Category? Pros and Cons](https://youtube.com/watch?v=5m_ix2Ya-1E) ## Summary This video explains the benefits and drawbacks of changing a YouTube channel's category after it has been established. The creator discusses how category changes affect audience targeting and ad revenue, and advises on when to make such changes. ### Key Points - **Two types of categories** [00:02] — There are channel categories and video categories. Changing the channel category affects how the algorithm recommends content and which ads are shown. - **Benefit 1: Right audience targeting** [01:27] — Changing the category helps the algorithm suggest your videos to the correct audience. Without changing, your new content may be shown to the wrong audience, reducing engagement. - **Benefit 2: Better ad relevance** [03:04] — Advertisers select categories for their ads. If your channel category matches your content, you become eligible for relevant ads, increasing revenue potential. - **Disadvantage 1: Temporary view drop** [04:24] — Switching categories can cause a sudden drop in views because your existing audience may not be interested in the new content. It takes time for the algorithm to build a new audience. - **Disadvantage 2: Deleting old videos hurts channel weight** [05:19] — If you delete old videos to start fresh, you lose watch time and channel authority, leading to lower visibility and fewer views. - **Bonus tip: Choose a related category** [05:48] — Instead of switching to a completely different category, choose a category related to your original content to retain audience interest and minimize loss. ### Conclusion Changing your YouTube channel category has both advantages and disadvantages. It's best to choose your category wisely from the start, but if you must change, opt for a related category to minimize negative impact. ## Transcript frequently. But they do not know what difference changing the category makes to the YouTube channel. Now let me tell you that if you create your YouTube channel and after some time change its category, then you get two big benefits and two big disadvantages also. In today's video I will talk about both the advantages and also both the disadvantages. Then you have to decide whether you should change the category of your YouTube channel midway or not. If you like the video then like it and also subscribe to the channel because this channel is full of knowledge for beginners. Look, first you have to understand the category. There are two types of categories here. There is one channel category and one video category. Now what happens is that suppose you upload 100 videos in the same category. Suppose it is put in the education category. But you thought that you have only one channel. There is no other channel apart from this. You went to a party somewhere and did some entertainment and just made a video of it and you thought that friend, I should show this to my audience also. I don't have any other channel. I will upload this video on this channel. So he will go. If your audience loves you, they will watch one of your videos and you can also choose a separate category for that video. Even if you do n't, YouTube's algorithm will. This much will do. But if you disadvantages. Now let's first talk about the benefits. Suppose you created a channel and you thought that friend, I will travel and upload travel videos and you created the channel. You had already gone to two-three places. The trip had already been done before creating the channel. His videos were also recorded. You uploaded those videos gradually. Approximately 2025 videos were uploaded. Your channel was in the Travel and Event category and you uploaded only travel videos. Now whatever situation happened later, you stopped travelling. You don't travel anymore. So what should you do now? Now you feel that friend, the channel is mine. I do one thing, now I start uploading educational videos on the channel. If I thing, now I start uploading educational videos on the channel. If I education. So, if you change the category to educational video, then the biggest benefit you will get from this is that the YouTube algorithm will come to know that brother, earlier the travel and event video was yours and it will suggest your video to those people who actually wanted to watch travel videos. Now you have changed the content also. The content is now yours for education. So you also changed your category. So the algorithm will gradually get the signal that brother, your channel is now in the education category. Now your channel will be recommended to those people who like to watch educational videos. So the first advantage will be that you will get the right audience. YouTube's algorithm will start suggesting your video to the right audience. And if you do not change the category, then your education video may be suggested to the travel video and if your video is suggested to the wrong audience then the audience does not pay attention to the video. So this is one advantage. Now let's talk about the other benefits. Look, when an advertiser comes to YouTube and says that I want to run instream ads or give advertisements for this product of mine, then what does he do ? Keeps some categories selected. For example, if someone has a tech product, then he wants that the advertisement of his product should be shown only on the tech channels so that the audience of the tech channels is also interested in tech, then the sales of my product can increase. So he tells YouTube that brother, look, this is my product. I want to run an ad for this product on YouTube. I have to run only on this category. Now suppose someone comes and brings a product from the education category. Suppose someone has made a pan. Now for the example of this pen, this pen is his product and he wants to advertise it on YouTube and goes to YouTube and says that brother, my ad should run on all the channels of the education category. Now brother, you do not have education category because you did not change the category, so how will it work on you? But if you do this then that ad can also run on your channel. So overall, when you change the category according to your content, the algorithm comes to know about it and starts run ads according to the category. So these are two benefits. Now let's talk about the disadvantages. The first biggest disadvantage is that suppose you started posting travel content and your category was travel. So your audience till now was the one that wants to watch travel videos. But now you have switched the content itself. Now you have started posting educational videos. Now it is possible that your audience who wanted to watch travel videos does that your audience who wanted to watch travel videos does see views drop suddenly. When you upload educational videos on your channel, the views will gradually increase after a long time. Because gradually the algorithm will get the signal that you have changed the category. Then the algorithm will suggest your content to the education audience. That will take time. But maybe by 15, 20, 30, 50 videos you might see views drop because it takes time to build a new audience. So this is the biggest loss. Now let's talk about the second disadvantage. Many times you think that look friend, now I have completely changed the category of my channel. So what I do is I upload only educational videos. There are two situations in this also. If you delete all the videos and start uploading new educational videos, then when so many videos are suddenly deleted, their watch time etc. also gets deleted. So the weightage of your channel will suddenly decrease and due to this you will get less views. It will seem as if due to this you will get less views. It will seem as if This is also a problem for you. So whenever you create your channel, think beforehand about which category you want to keep. Yes, in this you can do one thing in which you will not suffer any loss. I am telling you this as a bonus tip. If you think that I was running my travel channel but right now I am not travelling. So choose some other category related to travel so that the audience which was already watching the travel video also watches the other video. For example, suppose you had a comedy channel and you used to do stand-up comedy and now you have started making some entertainment videos. If you start making short films, you can gradually change the category because the only talk about YouTube. So gradually I can start talking about Instagram and Facebook also because there is a similar audience. But if you choose a completely different category and also change it, then as I told you, there will be two benefits and two disadvantages. Therefore, you should choose the category of your channel wisely while creating the channel. Still, if you have any in the next video with a new topic. Till then, Jai Hind.