YouTube Custom URL issue – Add a few character

Getting a Custom URL on YouTube would be a great thing for your branding. But, sometimes you may not be able to claim your own brand name for some issues. We encountered same issue. This issue is common and I see thousands of people have this. In this short article, we will cover the issue, how to get it resolved.

YouTube Custom URL – Add a Few Extra Letters or numbers

We have spent many months trying to figure out the best way to get this Custom URL thing fixed. Everytime we would go to the YouTube Advanced Settings, it would always show us the below error asking to “add a few characters” at the end of the channel actual brand URL. it would say at the bottom “Many people have the same name. Add a few extra letters or numbers to make this URL unique to you”

The irony is that, our Brand name was already there and there was no need to add any extra characters. Also, no one was using that URL or brand name. So, technically the custom URL was available and it seemed like a bug to us.

Youtube asking for adding extra characters
Youtube asking for adding extra characters

Options Tried to Fix Custom URL Issue

We have tried many things. Below are some of the different things that we tried and did not work. You can see all user suggestions at Youtube Help Threads

  • Changing the Display name in profile of the Youtube account
  • Updating the Google+ account with different name
  • Changing the Channel Name something else by removing some characters and try for custom URL

Finally, we tried the bookish way to start over again. Below is the solution that fixed the issue of custom URL for YouTube

How to fix YouTube Custom URL issue – Add a Few Characters ?

There are two main ways to fix this. First we will cover the option that worked for us. We tried both ways, but our first one was faster.

Option 1 – Contact YouTube help Team using Chat

  • Step 1 : Go to get a Custom Channel URL Help page
  • Step 2 : You will see a small text at the end that says “Contact our Creator Support Team”. You need to click on that. See below screenshot
Youtube Help Page for custom URL
Custom URL Help page for YouTube
  • Step 3 : It will open up a page that will have ways to contact the YouTube Help team. It may be custom for you as a user. But, here is the link to Contact YouTube Support Team
  • Step 4 : You have the option to Email or Chat. You will see it like below
Contact options for Youtube team - chat and email
  • Step 5 : Choose the English Chat option as it is available 24×7
  • Step 6 : You need to enter your Channel Name and then start chat. it will look like below
Enter Channel Details for chatting with youtube team
Enter Channel name
  • Step 6 : You will chat with a real person, explain your situation. They are really nice and they will try to solve it, if they can. See below sample of their exact chat transcript for your info.
Chat Transcript with YouTube Help team
  • Step 7 : if they cannot solve it, they will tell that, they will email you with the details. For our case, they could not solve it there. So, they emailed next day.
  • Step 8 : You will get email telling that the issue is fixed and they reserved it for you. See below. It will clearly tell the steps.
Email from Youtube Help team fixing the issue of Custom URL
  • Step 9 : You go to YouTube.com/account_advanced , where you see the Custom URL setting. You will get a pop up telling that you have the URL reserved for your brand. It would be the one that you told the person in chat. See below.
  • All you need to do is check the box and click on Change URL, it will fix the issue and you will get your custom URL.
Confirmation for Custom URL on YouTube

Option 2 – Contact YouTube help Team using Twitter

Your second option is to use the Twitter Channel of Youtube Help. They are very responsive too. They did respond to my second request.

  • Step 1: Go to Twitter account of TeamYouTube
  • Step 2 : Click on Tweet
Twitter Page of Youtube Help
  • Step 3 : Add your issue briefly in the pop-up that comes. Put in a screenshot.
Tweet Youtube
  • Step 4 : You will get a response from the team within a day. If they do not respond in a day or two, resend the tweet using the steps above again. Sometimes, they miss messages. I did not get response in the first time, then i tried second time. Once you get a response, they will continue the thread and help you. See below thread on their response. This should also solve the issue. For us the chat worked, before this team could help. I replied telling them that the issue is resolved.
Youtube Tweet Chat and response.

Did you had the same issue ? How did you get this solved ?

5 Comments

  1. Useful post, however, here is a heads-up.
    The option to contact the creator support is only available to people in the partner program, i. e. you must be partnered with Youtube.
    This means if you are just starting out or not partnered yet, you cannot contact the support to have this issue resolved.

    Reply
    • Thanks for sharing!

      Reply
  2. Thank you so much! I just chatted to a support agent and they were super helpful. I didn’t even know that was an option, as it used to be very difficult to contact YouTube.

    Reply
  3. The way I did it was to change my channel name briefly to just the first few letters of my brand, and when it asked me to customize it with extra characters I just added the rest of my brand name and published it. Once I had the custom URL I wanted, I changed my channel name back.

    Reply
  4. Hi, Thanks for this. It is the only relevant review of the issue on the while internet. However, I wasn’t clear of Step 9. All the steps till Step 9 were done at my end. But when I got to YouTube.com/account_advanced , NO POP-up appeared. Would be useful if you could elaborate that step.

    Reply

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