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I am trying to create an annotation in a YouTube video to link to a blog post. The URL I am trying to link to is http://laggacy.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/slender-the-arrival-beta-preview-extra-content/ but when I try to enter that into the field I get an error saying Please enter a valid URL.

I have verified my channel, I am part of YouTube's (new) partnership program, I have associated the website and I have enabled my account for external annotations. Why won't this work? Is it because I'm hosting the blog on a subdomain?

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3 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

Personally I have never tried adding links in annotations to my YouTube videos but I just looked up the rules on their help/tips page and it appears that you can only add links to "content" [other videos/same video/channel pages/search results] or "calls to action" [subscribe/compose message/video response]. This essentially means your links in annotations can only be YouTube related and not external.

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This page on YouTube support states that you can link to an associated website support.google.com/youtube/bin/… – David Blayney Apr 5 at 16:16
Thanks for pointing that out. Maybe there is a restriction on the URL. I guess it is now a question for YouTube Partner Forum - productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/youtubepartners – GeekByte Apr 5 at 16:41
It's probably to do with it being on a subdomain – David Blayney Apr 5 at 16:51
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I had this same issue, and found a simple solution: For me anyway, the problem was caused by using Firefox. When I used Internet Explorer, all was ok. Hope this works for you.

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up vote -1 down vote

Why not shorten the link with bit.ly. This would produce a valid URL.

http://laggacy.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/slender-the-arrival-beta-preview-extra-content/

becomes

http://bit.ly/12VqTti

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2  
Shortening a URL is against the regulations of the external website annotation – David Blayney Apr 5 at 23:42
It wouldn't make a difference by shortening the link, as it is still an external domain, bit.ly. I don't think the URL being a Wordpress subdomain is the source of the problem, but rather, it not being somehow associated by Google correctly. Regardless, @davblayn is correct. – Feral Oink Apr 6 at 23:30
davblayn Do you have a link to the regulations of the external website annotation? My searches have not found these terms and conditions you mentioned. – designerWhoCodes Apr 9 at 16:02

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