As a new YouTuber, have you been wondering what does a highlighted comment mean on YouTube? Or as a YouTube commenter, you have found a highlight in one of your comments and are confused about it?
With YouTube improving its services to its users, highlighted comments are one of the areas they have improved when it comes to the comment sector.
Being displayed above the commenter’s name in a light grey shade, the highlighted comment is meant to make your comment more visible on a particular video.
Though a highlighted comment can appear on YouTube for a number of reasons, there are mostly there to help you navigate towards the comment easily.
What is a Highlighted Comment on YouTube?
A highlighted comment on YouTube is an automatic feature generated by YouTube. The highlighted comment is meant to simplify both user or creator’s experience especially when a video has hundreds or thousands of comments.
Light gray in color, the highlighted comment mostly appear above-pinned comments, the highlighted comments make your browsing experience easy in several ways. One of them is if you comment on a video, and someone replies, you get a notification.
This could be either on your email, notification bell, or comment section of the YouTube dashboard. When you click on the notification, the comment automatically is shown as a highlighted comment.
Do note, whether it’s your video or not when you can click on a comment’s timestamp, the comment is highlighted making it appear at the top of the comment section.
However, you should notice that the highlight disappears once you are done interacting with the other person. The good news is the highlighted comments are reloadable once you tap the comment timestamp.
Keep in mind, when you reload the comment, the person who created the comment will get a message back saying “Highlighted Reply”.
What Does it Mean When Your Comment is Highlighted on YouTube?
There is nothing much when it comes to your comment being highlighted on YouTube. The highlight is there to make it easier to find your own comments every time you revisit a video you commented on earlier on.
Moreover, the highlighted comment may appear above your comment if you click on a link directly to your comment. The link might be from an email from YouTube or YouTube notification bell.
As for the video creator, the highlighted comment tag may appear when you get a notification if someone else comments on your video. Note that, this gives you the advantage to view the comment at the top of the area and respond more quickly.
Keep in mind, when you get a highlighted comment on YouTube, that doesn’t mean the video creator noticed you.
No one else except you can see the words Highlighted comment on the top left side of your comment.
Who Can Highlight the Comment on YouTube?
When it comes to highlighting a comment on YouTube, you should note that neither the YouTuber nor the users choose to highlight a comment.
The highlighting is done automatically by YouTube depending on the times you have opened a particular video.
Not a good or bad thing, mainly the feature is just meant to help you navigate comments that might be of interest to you. Nonetheless, the YouTuber can be able to pin comments on his own videos. This enables the comment to appear on the top of a post.
With that in mind, you should know that no one else is allowed to pin or unpin comments on the videos except the YouTuber.
Keep this in mind, as a YouTuber you also have the power to moderate comments by either tweaking, approving, hiding, removing, or marking the comments as spam.
Note that, all these YouTube features enable you to be updated on every video you post while giving you a chance to interact with your viewers.
Are Highlighted Comments Visible for Everyone?
No, highlighted comments are not visible to everyone. Since the highlighted comment is meant to draw attention you are the only one who can see them.
Found even above a pinned comment, YouTube implements it via a special URL. Therefore, no one will see the highlighted comment except the ones who have access to the said URL.
Do notice, this feature doesn’t affect how others perceive the comment section and it’s possible anyone going through the comments can see it.
Just know that the comment won’t be at the top of the screen with a little box that says highlighted comment unless the owner of the channel has pinned it.
How do I Remove Highlighted Comments?
Although it is not simple to remove a highlighted comment since it is automatically done by YouTube, it is not impossible either.
However, there are several temporary solutions you could try to remove the highlighted comment. For example, you could try to edit the video’s URL to remove the parameter added to the normal YouTube link. The steps are:
1. Go to the highlighted tag and edit the particular URL of the video. Remove the red part of the URL starting with “&lc.” After removing the part, reload the original video link.
2. Alternatively, you can try logging out from your Google Account and anonymously browse YouTube. By doing this you will no longer be able to see any highlighted comments.
Keep in mind, that this will restrict you from interacting in any way with that video let alone leaving a comment.
What Does Highlighted Reply Mean on YouTube?
First and foremost, highlighted replies on YouTube are similar to highlighted comments. Just like highlighted comments, the creator doesn’t select them but the tag is positioned near your profile picture to help you easily find the comment.
However, unlike highlighted comments, you get to choose whether to reply to the comments or not. Thankfully with the process being simple, it will take you only a few minutes to reply.
One way to reply to a YouTube comment is via email. Whenever a new comment drops in the video, you will receive a notification via email. Once you open the email you will find a clickable Reply button that will lead you straight to the specific comment. Once there you will just write a reply and send it in seconds.
As for the YouTube Dashboard, you only need to follow the comment section which will direct you to the highlighted comments to reply to the new comment.
Keep in mind; at the dashboard, you will not only get the latest comments but also the latest posts as well as other important notifications.
Conclusion
That’s all we have for you when it comes to highlighted comments on YouTube. Being a part of YouTube’s features for several years, unfortunately, highlighted comments do still confuse a lot of YouTube users and video creators.
Basically, the feature highlights a comment so that we don’t have to scroll down all the way to find our comment.
Nevertheless, we hope this article helps you to find all the answers you have been looking for. In case you have any queries related to the article, let us know in the comment section below.
Glen Beker
I am Glen and I’m a 100% tech-addicted guy, Blogger, Video Editor and Entrepreneur. I spent a lot of my time learning how to properly edit videos, I've tested a lot of vlogging equipment and now with my team, I share all these tips with you.
