Redirects

There are two redirect features on YouTube - Channel Redirects and Conditional Redirects, both of which are very different. This article does not cover "live redirects" as they are not special.

Channel Redirects

Channel redirects allow you to redirect the shortened of a YouTube URL to any other YouTube page (including videos).

For channels with a legacy username ex. /user/smosh or with a Custom URL /+smosh, /smosh would be the shortened version. By setting the channel redirect feature, these can be redirected to any other youtube.com page. It's also possible to redirect viewers off-site by chaining this with an open redirect.

The handle URL ex. /@smosh is considered a "shortened version" and hence works with the Channel redirect feature.

In the past, this feature was automatically granted when a channel is linked to a CMS account. If you left/were removed from the CMS, the feature remained, leaving many channels from the MCN era to keep this feature. However, recently a changed was made such that if a channel is unlinked from the CMS, this feature is disabled. This feature is also no longer automatically granted.

For channels with a "Vanity URL" (ex. /mrbeast), it does not work with the Channel redirect feature.

Conditional Redirects

Conditional redirects allow you to conditionally redirect users on your channel page to any other channel based on country/locale/age/gender rules.

Unlike channel redirects, these work as long as you land on the channel page. After an incident in 2022, the documentation of this feature was removed from the support article (original, current).

This feature was originally granted alongside channel redirects for partnered channels back in the day. However, due to an impersonation incident in 2013, all channels that were not hidden or had the feature in use had it removed. This feature is available on request for channels tied to a Partner Manager (whether indirectly through a CMS or not). There is currently wide-spread abuse of this feature for social-engineering YouTube's support team for stealing creator awards, handles or viewing unauthorized channel analytics.

Example redirect	Redirect result
en_,jawed	Redirects all English speakers to jawed.
UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA	Redirects all users to MrBeast.
_us,<21,_block	Blocks all users who are in the United States and under the age of 21 from visiting this channel.
_us,>=21,f,jawed _block	Redirects who are in the United States, 21 years old or older, and female to jawed and blocks all other users.