EDITOR'S NOTE - CORRECTION and APOLOGY
Corrected: December, 2025
What Changed: This article didn't fully portray YouTube creator Zennie Abraham's concerns and failed to contact him before publication.
What Actually Happened: In July 2019, Zennie Abraham, who started his YouTube channel Zennie62 in 2006, raised concerns in a Twitter exchange with Danny Sullivan, who was then Google's Public Liaison for Search. In the tweets, Abraham argued that Google's policy of not favoring YouTube was harmful to YouTube's profitability and its partners. Sullivan responded that Google Search aims to show relevant content from across the web and doesn't give YouTube any advantage over other video sources. However, in his subsequent video response, Abraham clarified his fuller concerns included: how different platforms treat YouTube videos, the impact on creator revenue, and technical issues with schema-coded pages appearing as video results without actual video content.
Our Failures: We based this on Barry Schwartz's July 10, 2019 reporting at Search Engine Roundtable but missed some context and never contacted Abraham.
We apologize to Zennie Abraham and our readers.
Corrected: December, 2025
What Changed: This article didn't fully portray YouTube creator Zennie Abraham's concerns and failed to contact him before publication.
What Actually Happened: In July 2019, Zennie Abraham, who started his YouTube channel Zennie62 in 2006, raised concerns in a Twitter exchange with Danny Sullivan, who was then Google's Public Liaison for Search. In the tweets, Abraham argued that Google's policy of not favoring YouTube was harmful to YouTube's profitability and its partners. Sullivan responded that Google Search aims to show relevant content from across the web and doesn't give YouTube any advantage over other video sources. However, in his subsequent video response, Abraham clarified his fuller concerns included: how different platforms treat YouTube videos, the impact on creator revenue, and technical issues with schema-coded pages appearing as video results without actual video content.
Our Failures: We based this on Barry Schwartz's July 10, 2019 reporting at Search Engine Roundtable but missed some context and never contacted Abraham.
We apologize to Zennie Abraham and our readers.