---
title: 'YouTube Just Released a New Algorithm Update — 6 Changes That Can Grow Small Channels Fast'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tnon2uj7fDM'
video_id: 'Tnon2uj7fDM'
date: 2026-08-12
duration_sec: 764
---

# YouTube Just Released a New Algorithm Update — 6 Changes That Can Grow Small Channels Fast

> Source: [YouTube Just Released a New Algorithm Update — 6 Changes That Can Grow Small Channels Fast](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tnon2uj7fDM)

## Summary

This video breaks down six recent YouTube algorithm updates that the creator claims can help small channels grow faster, from mandatory AI content disclosure to A/B testing features and niche discipline. The creator, who has over 900,000 subscribers, also heavily promotes the vidIQ AI tool as a way to optimize old content and revive underperforming videos. Note that a substantial portion of the video functions as a sponsored advertisement for vidIQ.

### Key Points

- **AI Disclosure Requirements** [00:25] — YouTube now requires creators using AI to disclose it in three places: in the video description, in the video's content itself, and via the AI disclosure checkbox on each individual upload. The creator advises erring on the side of caution since failure to disclose can result in channel strikes or bans, as evidenced by hundreds of Reddit complaints.
- **Updated A/B Testing Feature** [02:29] — YouTube fixed its A/B testing tool for thumbnails and titles. Creators can test titles only, thumbnails only, or both together. The creator strongly recommends testing them separately (2-3 variants each) to avoid introducing too many variables, and suggests using ChatGPT to generate alternative titles with matching keywords.
- **Optimize for Click-Through Rate** [04:17] — A/B tests for titles and thumbnails should be evaluated based on click-through rate, not watch time. Titles affect impressions; the title and thumbnail together determine whether viewers click. Testing both simultaneously introduces six variables, producing unreliable results.
- **Subscriber Dislike Hurts Channel** [04:33] — Posting content your subscribers don't like actively damages your channel. Every poorly received video makes you eligible for fewer views on the next upload. The creator calls this one of the biggest mistakes creators make — continuing with formats or topics that underperform with their audience.
- **Optimize Old Content for Delayed Explosions** [05:24] — YouTube's current algorithm frequently triggers 'delayed explosions' where old videos suddenly go viral. The only way to trigger these is to update titles, SEO, and thumbnails. The creator demonstrates vidIQ's AI tool, which automatically suggests these updates, and shares an example of a short that reached over 4 million views after optimization.
- **Posting Frequency Strategy** [08:42] — Creators should post quickly after a video rated 4/10 or higher, but wait longer after a 1-3/10 video to avoid compounding damage. For shorts, this rule doesn't apply — creators should post multiple shorts daily since performance varies unpredictably and shorts have a longer immediate lifespan.
- **Staying in Your Niche** [09:56] — Posting outside your niche hurts channel performance. The creator proves this with his own data (YouTube-topic videos outperform others) and examples from other channels like Dr. Jones and Mike the Credit Guy. Topic consistency matters more than any other factor in controlling view counts.

## Transcript

YouTube just released a brand new algorithm update that makes it easier than ever before for small channels to go on YouTube. So long as you change the settings as you're editing this video and begin to use new features, the YouTube is pushing like crazy.
In fact, these changes can help this creator fire up their group, this creator, and this creator. And if you make them too, you can go from small channel to huge channel and monetize incredibly quickly. So please, don't skip any of these.
So the first thing that you need to make sure you're doing is if you're using AI at all on your channel, you need to make sure that you're disclosing it. In fact, there are three different ways that you want to disclose it, and most people won't tell you this. In fact, YouTube themselves won't even tell you this.
Okay, so when it comes to how you're actually disclosing this, I am way more conservative than most people, and I would essentially recommend that you're doing three things. The first thing is you want to make sure that you're disclosing it inside of your description.
For example, if we look at this creator right here, her entire channel is an AI clone, and she uses AI literally to do everything on her channel. and we can see right here that her description says, the world's first 100% AI clone humanly run channel on AI news.
But I would strongly recommend that you do. If you are using AI inside of your channel, I would disclose it in the description of your actual content itself. In addition to that, if we come over here, I would also disclose it inside of the actual video description.
I think it's totally fine to put it towards the end of the video description, but I would recommend that you do that. and she's kind of doing that right here with the done-for-you clone. In addition to that, the other thing that you need to do is you need to make sure that you're disclosing it on each individual post.
If we scroll down right here, we're going to see this right here. So was AI used to generate or edit your content in any of the following ways? One, make a real person appear to say or do something they didn't do, alters footage of a real event or place,
regenerates a realistic looking scene, didn't actually occur. Now, one of the things that you're probably asking yourself is, Well, these things are pretty broad and pretty subjective, and I'm not sure if I actually did these things, which is why I would err on the side of caution with this.
Because the last thing that you want is to be one of those people on Reddit that is saying that they're a counter-band. In fact, if we come over here, AI, YouTube, ban, look at this. There are tons of people, literally hundreds of people posting about this on Reddit.
So again, I would just make sure that you err on the side of caution here. You want to use AI to go deeper with your content, to make better content while spending less time creating it, not to completely just make it all AI because YouTube hates that.
Change number two is YouTube has now updated the A-B test feature, and here's specifically how you should be using it. So yes, the A-B feature did get fixed on YouTube. Now, maybe you're going to be able to access this if we come over to your thumbnail right here.
If you click on A-B testing, you could see that there are basically three ways that we could actually use this. You do title only A-B testing, you do thumbnail A-B testing, or you do title and thumbnail A-B testing.
Now what I would strongly suggest that you do is do not use title and thumbnail. Instead, you want to run different tests at different times. For example, maybe you want to test just the title. I would do three different titles. What you want to make sure that you do is you want to make sure that you using AI to actually help you do this For example I would bring the current title that you have or whatever title you land on over into Chats for Tea and I would say something like I want two other titles to A test against this one
Please make sure the keywords are the same. Now, what this actually does right here, and then we paste in a title, is it's going to give us a few other titles that we can actually test right here, and this goes through things like grow faster, get more views,
how to get more views. And essentially what this is doing is testing different keywords to see how YouTube is actually going to react to them. Again, you could run the title one time, you could set the test. Once you actually get the results from that, then I would run a thumbnail test.
Again, I wouldn't test all of this because then I think that you're introducing way too many variables. With the title, you're either testing two or three. With the thumbnail, you're either testing two or three. But if we really think about the title and thumbnail, now we're introducing
six different variables and I just don't think you're going to get as good results from you actually doing this. So I would go through and I would make sure that you're testing like this. And again, make sure that you're testing this on the basis of click-through rate, not on how long
people are spending watching the content. Because your title and your thumbnail are really going to affect two things. One, your title is going to affect how many impressions you get. And two, the title and thumbnail are going to affect whether or not people click on your video. So you want to make sure that you're adapting those for the right things. Change number three is that
Now when you post something that your subscribers don't actually like on YouTube, it's actually going to hurt your channel and it's going to hurt your group. So you want to make sure that when you find a topic, you find a format that your audience just doesn't like,
you should stop posting about that topic or in that format. Because the more that you do it, the more it's actually going to hurt your channel. It's not going to help you. It's going to make it harder to grow. It's going to make it harder to get views. And this is a mistake that I see so many creators making right now.
And it's probably one of the biggest mistakes that you can make on YouTube. because essentially what YouTube's algorithm is trying to tell you is, hey, we don't like when you post about this, your audience doesn't like when you post about this, so please stop posting about it, and every single time that you do that,
it makes you eligible to get less views on the next video that you upload. So you could be hurting your good content by posting that content that's kind of risky. The change number four is you need to make sure that you're going through and optimizing all of your old content.
In fact, in YouTube's current algorithm, delayed explosions happen like crazy, But the only way to get those to happen is to update your title, update your SEO, update your thumbnail. And lucky for you, there's actually an AI tool that will automatically do this for you and suggest changes.
Check this out. Now, my favorite way to be able to go back and actually adapt my content is doing two things. And this is all using vidIQ. So if we come into the feed right here, we could see that they are actively actually going through and telling me what I should do.
And this is the power of having AI help you grow on YouTube. You get to do these things automatically. For example, they have a new title suggestion. They think that this title will be better right here. I can click on Apply right here. I can go and regenerate, and boom, I just updated one of my titles.
In addition to that, we can see I just got three new insights right here. So if I actually refresh this right here, this will go ahead and give me those new insights. I have another title suggestion for this one. This goes through and actually generates responses to different comments that they think that I should be replying to It shows me niche outliers Again I have title suggestions I have more comments right here This actually gives me different competitors that I should be tracking
This gives me a clipping opportunity on this one, so I could turn this piece of content into a bunch of shorts. It gives me more niche outliers right here. And this right here is incredibly powerful. It's giving me new thumbnails. It's giving me new title suggestions, giving me new content ideas,
and it doesn't stop there. Because if we click on optimize right here, I could go through all of my long-form content. I could go through all of my short-form content and be able to optimize it. For example, it says that this video right here, I should be optimizing my title.
And this actually goes through, gives me better titles that I should use, and I can click on regenerate, and it will actually generate more titles. In addition to that, this will actually help me regenerate my SEL, my description, my tags. And this will go through, tell me what to do.
This also goes through and actually reviews my content and tells me what I should do to fix the hook, the re-hook, the pacing, the B-roll, and the editing. This literally gives me feedback, and guess what? This is all unsolicited feedback.
You could go through, and you could optimize all of your old content, and YouTube's algorithm loves this. In fact, this is the easiest way for you to be able to get more views on YouTube while not working harder. Why? Because AI is doing most of the work,
and none of this requires you creating new content. It all requires you optimizing your old content, which could get your videos kicked back into the algorithm, and then they could go viral. For example, I recently did this on one of my shorts right here that's now gotten me over 4 million views,
and you could see that for the first long period of time it didn't take off. I made the changes, and boom, it blew up, and vidIQ's AI tool that I use now will do this. And if you want millions of views, you want to get more subscribers,
well, without having to constantly create new content because you could be adjusting the older content you've made, you need to use this tool. Now, the best part about vidIQ is that if you go to the pinned comment below, you can get started with it today for only $1.
I have an exclusive code that you're not going to find anywhere else, so I would strongly suggest that if you want to be able to get more views, spend less time creating content, and ultimately get more subscribers and get monetized on YouTube, you go to that pinned comment below and get started with vidIQ.
In fact, it's been my secret weapon to gaining over 900,000 subscribers, which would have never happened had I not signed up. Now change to number five is you need to make sure that you're taking more time in between posts that are a one out of ten, a two out of ten, or a three out of ten.
If you don't know what I mean by this, let me explain. Okay, so here's exactly what I mean by this. If we look at this video right here, this video was a six out of ten. If we click in here, we could see what my usual performance is at this period of time.
So we could see I haven't posted in a day and 19 hours on this channel, and for my top videos, they get over 10,000 views in this period. So this is like a average video. Now, since it's an average video, I could go ahead and I could post on YouTube again.
In fact, I actually was supposed to post yesterday, but I didn't hear the alarm on my phone, so the post didn't get posted. But I will be posting that video today. So what you want to make sure that you do, if you have a video that is a 4 out of 10, a 5 out of 10, a 6 out of 10, 7 out of 10, 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10, 10 out of 10, you want to post your next video kind of quickly.
You don want to wait too long You want to get another batch You want to get another post out there and you want to make sure that you actually making adjustments and making the changes of what didn allow you to get views on this video Now everything that I just said to you is about long content
If you have a short, don't pay attention to the ranking by views. You should just be putting out multiple shorts every single day because you never know what's going to blow up, what's going to take off. And shorts have a lot more of a lifespan right now than long-form content when it comes to immediately getting shown to your subscribers.
The change over six is that again, posting outside of your niche now is going to hurt your page. I cannot emphasize how important this is and again, I want to show you what a fine line is in terms of this and how to determine what YouTube actually thinks is your niche.
So here's how I want to prove to you that actually posting outside of your niche is to some degree hurting your channel. So if we come over to my page right here, we could see that the far majority of the content that I post, it gets a lot of views, is about YouTube.
If we actually come over here and you look at my videos, you can see this video is about YouTube at almost 10,000 views now. This video right here is also about YouTube. It's at 27,000 views. This video right here, again, about YouTube at 12,000 views.
If we look at my content that isn't about YouTube, it underperforms more often than my other content. And essentially what I'm proving to you here is that what you post about YouTube wants it aged down.
And it's not only me. If we come over here and we look up somebody like Dr. Jones, and we come over to his channel right here, and we come over to his videos, we could see this video about Reddit TrueTight, 17,000 views. If we scroll down a little bit, this video about Reddit TrueTight, 44,000 views.
If we scroll down a little bit, this video right here about Reddit TrueTight also really well. So depending on the topic he's posting about controls his views. And this is the thing that I want you to take into consideration. The topic that you post about on YouTube is going to control your views more than anything else.
So you want to make sure that you're niching down and you're focusing on the same things. To show you one more example right here, if we come over here and look up Mike the Credit Guy, if we come over to his content, you can actually see why things do really well and why things do really bad.
In fact, if we scroll down right here and we could see this video right here, 19,000, 16,000, 15,000, they're all about the same topic. And then if we come over to the other things that he posted, none of them did as well.
Why? Because they weren't about that same topic. So the topic that you're choosing needs to be consistent, needs to see something that YouTube wants to push out on your page. And YouTube is going to be classified on your page for a specific type of content.
So if you want to maximize your views, maximize your subscribers, maximize your growth, then you're going to want to make sure that you're only posting about those topics. But maybe you run a business like I do, in which case I also need to post about TikTok and Instagram.
You can't only post about YouTube. So that's why I implement the strategies that I implement. It does decrease my views a little bit, but I think that that's fine personally because I'm still hitting my goals. But again, the decision that you're going to make is going to be dependent on what your actual focus is with YouTube.
Now, if you enjoyed this video and you want to learn about the best tags and the best hashtags you need to make sure that you're using on YouTube right now to increase your growth, I would strongly suggest you check out this video right here because it walks you through all these new changes and which ones you need to do.
I'll see you over there.