Creator FAQ: your video on Vid Receipts

Vid Receipts is a place people take notes on YouTube videos. A note is pinned to an exact second, it can hold text, images and documents, and people can watch a video together in a party while they write them. Your video plays in a standard YouTube embed while that happens.

This page answers what a creator usually wants to know when they find their video here. Every claim about YouTube below comes from a Google or YouTube document, linked where it is made. Where those documents do not answer a question, this page says so rather than filling the gap.

What is actually happening to your video

Nothing unusual. It is the YouTube player, running in a page, playing your video. Around it sit receipts, which are notes people pin to specific seconds, and a Watch Along panel, where a group can press play together and talk about it. The notes are stored here. The video is not: it streams from YouTube every time, the way it does on any site that embeds you.

Receipts are held to content guidelines and screened before they post, on every plan.

Do the views count?

An embedded playback is a first-class, reported playback location in YouTube's data model. The playback_location_type dimension has a value 1 for "activity that occurred on another website or application where the video was embedded using an <iframe> or <object> embed", separate from value 0 for the watch page or an official YouTube app. Alongside it, playback_location_detail "specifies the URL or application where the playback occurred" and "is only supported for views that occurred in embedded players" (YouTube Reporting API dimensions).

So the playback is measured, attributed to your video, and labelled with where it happened.

Where we show up in your reports

In the reach report, under External sources, described by YouTube as "Traffic from websites and apps that have your YouTube video embedded or linked to", and the same page says "The external report shows you the specific external websites and apps where viewers found your content" (Understand your YouTube video reach).

Two details behind that summary are worth knowing.

A link and an embed are different events. The Analytics API separates EXT_URL, "The video views were referred from a link on another website", from NO_LINK_EMBEDDED, "The video was embedded on another website when it was viewed" (YouTube Analytics API dimensions).

You can see which site embedded you, through the playback locations report. Traffic source detail is supported for EXT_URL and several other sources, and NO_LINK_EMBEDDED is not one of them (same page). The per-site view for embedded playback lives in the playback-location detail instead.

A small site may not be named. YouTube warns that "You may see limited data for search terms and external URLs on the traffic sources, playback locations, and subscriber sources reports" and that "The actual thresholds at which data is limited are not published and subject to change at YouTube's discretion". Withheld rows still count in your totals (Understand limited data in YouTube Analytics). If you do not see us by name, that is the likely reason, and the views are still yours.

Do you still earn?

Yes, on YouTube's conditions, and we do not. YouTube's page on ads in embedded videos is direct about where the money goes:

• "Embedded videos may show skippable or non-skippable in-stream ads."
• "Any website or mobile app that embeds videos, including your own website or app, may generate revenue for you."
• "Only YouTube and the video owner will earn revenue from ads on embedded videos. The site owner where the video is embedded will not earn a share."
• "Note that embedded videos will honor the same ad enablement settings as videos on youtube.com."

(Ads on embedded videos, read on 12 August 2026)

Your ad settings travel with the video. We cannot change them, and we take no share of anything they earn.

The conditions sit on the embedding site. The same page has a section headed "Requirements for ads on embedded videos". "Ads appear on brand safe sites", judged by YouTube's systems against "a strict set of guidelines on content like adult imagery, violence, inappropriate and hateful language, and sites that promote infringement". And on the player: "We require that the video player appear large enough to promote a positive user experience. We recommend a 200x200 pixel or larger player. Also, videos should be embedded using the standard click-to-play embed and not a scripted play." Whether a given embed of yours clears those tests is YouTube's call rather than ours, and the page does not say what happens when one does not.

What we are not allowed to do to your video

These are not courtesies we decided on. They are the API rules the player runs under, and they are worth reading because they answer most of the "but could they" questions on their own.

From YouTube API Services: Required Minimum Functionality:

• "You must not display overlays, frames, or other visual elements in front of any part of a YouTube embedded player, including player controls."
• "You must not use overlays, frames or other visual elements to obscure any part of an embedded player, including player controls."
• "Embedded players must have a viewport that is at least 200px by 200px", large enough to show the controls without shrinking below that.
• "An API Client must not initiate an automatic playback until the player is visible and more than half of the player is visible on the page or screen."

From the YouTube API Services Developer Policies, a client must not "modify, interfere with, replace, or block advertisements placed or served by YouTube", must not "modify, build upon, or block any portion or functionality of a YouTube player", must not "separate, isolate, or modify the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content", and must not play content "from a background player, meaning a player that is not displayed in the page, tab, or screen that the user is viewing".

The same policies require the Made for Kids status of a video to be respected, which is why Watch Along never appears on videos marked as made for kids: no parties, no live watcher list, on any of them.

Nothing is ever drawn over the player here. Notes sit beside it or under it, never on it.

How to stop us recommending your video

Turn embedding off for the video in YouTube Studio. The path, in YouTube's words: "Sign in to YouTube Studio", then "From the left menu, select Content", then "Next to the video you'd like to manage, select Details", then "From the bottom, select SHOW MORE", then "Uncheck the box next to 'Allow embedding' and SAVE". That page also notes that "Age-restricted videos can't be watched on most 3rd party websites. These videos will redirect viewers back to YouTube when played" (Embed videos & playlists).

What happens on our side when you do. A player that is refused reports YouTube's error 101, which the API defines as "The owner of the requested video does not allow it to be played in embedded players", or 150, the same condition under a second code (IFrame Player API reference). We treat those two codes as a durable fact about the video rather than a temporary failure. The first time a signed-in viewer's player reports one, the video is recorded as non-embeddable and the surfaces that recommend videos stop offering it: the popular shelf, the Discover feed, and the Surprise Me picker, both on the site and in the browser extension. Nothing about this is behind a plan, and it needs no request to us.

What it does not do is delete the video from the site. This is a de-recommendation, so be clear about what stays: the video keeps its page here, receipts already written on it are still there, it still turns up in the feeds and searches of people who chose to follow it, and a direct link still opens it. The player on that page is YouTube's own and we draw nothing over it, so what a visitor is shown there is YouTube's rendering, not ours. If that is not enough for you, email info@vidreceipts.com rather than assume the switch did more than it did.

And there is no ads-only version of the switch. YouTube says it outright: "If you don't want to show ads on your embedded videos, there's no way to directly turn off ads on embedded videos only. You may turn off embedding altogether" (Ads on embedded videos).

Blocking by domain is a different feature with a narrow door. YouTube documents allow-lists and block-lists for where your videos may be embedded, then states that "These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager" (Restrict embedding). If you are not such a partner, the per-video switch is what you have. Email info@vidreceipts.com if you need something the switch cannot do, and we will talk it through.

The seven things YouTube does not answer

We went looking for these against the relevant page in each case, and the page does not answer them. They are open questions, not answers we are withholding, and anybody who states them confidently is working from something other than Google's documentation.

1. Whether an embedded view earns the same RPM as a watch-page view. The revenue analytics page defines RPM and CPM and never mentions playback location (Understand ad revenue analytics).
2. Whether embedded views count toward Partner Program eligibility. The eligibility page lists the thresholds and the exclusions and does not mention embedded playback either way (YPP overview & eligibility).
3. The exact conditions under which an embedded playback becomes a counted view. The engagement page describes validation and names low-quality playbacks as a category. It publishes duration thresholds for ad views only, and does not mention embedded players, autoplay or muted playback (How engagement metrics are counted).
4. Which ad formats are excluded from embedded playback. The ads page says which may appear, and never lists the ones that do not (Ads on embedded videos).
5. What happens to an existing embed at the moment you switch embedding off. The Studio page gives the steps and describes neither the viewer's side nor how quickly the change propagates. The error codes above tell us what a player receives, and no Google document states the timing.
6. Whether embedded views feed audience retention the way watch-page views do. The retention page segments by new against returning, subscriber against not, and organic against paid, and never by playback location or player type (Measure key moments for audience retention).
7. Whether the withholding thresholds differ for embedded playback locations. The limited-data page names playback locations as an affected report and declines to publish any threshold (Understand limited data in YouTube Analytics).

Things you may have read elsewhere

• "An embedded view counts after 30 seconds." The number is real and it measures ads. YouTube publishes duration rules for ad views, where a skippable in-stream ad counts on "a complete ad that's 11-30 seconds long" or "at least 30 seconds of an ad that's more than 30 seconds long". No Google document applies a duration rule to an ordinary organic view. If you open the citation behind this claim you will find 30 seconds on the page, attached to something else.
• "Autoplayed or muted embedded views do not count." Plausible given the filtering language YouTube uses, and unsourced as a rule.
• "Embedded views earn less." Google's documentation does not support this, and it does not contradict it either. Question 1 above is why.
• "Embedding steals your traffic." The primary record points the other way, since the view, the watch time and the ad revenue are yours and the embedding site earns nothing. We would rather say the record does not support the belief than tell you it is false.

If you would rather use this than avoid it

Creators claim their channel here, earn a verified badge, and pin their own timestamped notes on their videos. Corrections, sources, and the context that never fits in a description are the usual reasons. Creator tools covers verification, the badge, pinned receipts and the engagement summary, and connecting your YouTube account is the first step.

For the shorter public version of this page, written for anyone searching the question rather than for creators specifically, see Does embedding hurt your channel?

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