Discover all there is to know about the Highlighted Comments On YouTube, including how to highlight and cancel any highlighted comment.
Over the years, YouTube has grown from a reliable video hosting platform to a mini social media service. No, it’s not close to Facebook, but YouTube users are more likely to be broken in the comment section.
As a new YouTube feature implemented in the typical ambiguous Google way, I couldn’t answer this question with authority, but in the months that followed, I learned a lot thanks to the comments there and on this blog. I think I can answer that boring question now.
If you’re an avid YouTuber, you should familiarize yourself with the different types of comments (and what they mean) on the platform. Today we are telling you everything you need to know about highlighted and pinned comments on YouTube, everything you need to know about them.
What is a Highlighted Comment?
Highlighting is an automatic YouTube feature that tries to make the browsing experience easier.
Regardless of whether you are the creator of the video or a mere viewer, you can highlight a comment by clicking the timestamp next to it.
When you comment on a video and someone replies, you will receive a notification in your Gmail inbox or on YouTube that someone has replied to your comment. When you click the notification, the comment appears as a highlighted comment. The same logic applies to the answers.
If you’re a creator, highlighting makes it easy to respond to individual comments. Highlighted comments take precedence over pinned comments, meaning they appear even above pinned comments. Ultimately, the highlighted comments are just meant to make surfing more natural, nothing more.
Are the Highlighted Comments Public?
If your comment is highlighted on YouTube, it will even appear above the pinned comment. As you may have guessed by now, the functionality doesn’t affect how others view the comment area. No, if you mark up a comment, it won’t appear on other people’s computers. YouTube implements it locally by creating a unique URL. And no one other than those who have access to this URL can see your highlighted comment.
How to Cancel Highlighted Comments?
As mentioned in the previous section, every time you mark a comment, YouTube creates a unique URL for you. To undo the highlighting, all you need to do is return the URL to its original state.
To remove the highlighted comment, simply delete the part that begins with “&lc=.”
The remaining bit would be the original URL of the video. Press Enter to reload the page.
What if your Comment is Highlighted?
When someone clicks on the comment’s timestamp and highlights it, the creator of that comment receives a notification that their comment has been highlighted. If someone finds your comment exciting and highlights it, they will get a “Recommended Reply” message.
What does a YouTube Top Comment Mean?
If you’re a frequent visitor, you must have seen some comments get incredible likes and appear at the top. So this is really: the “best comments” on YouTube are the ones that generated a lot of likes. If you’d like to see the latest comments instead, just hit the “Sort by” button and choose “Most Recent First.”
What if your Comment is Pinned on YouTube?
When a video maker is pinning your comment on their video, it means they thought your post was invaluable and wants viewers to see it first. If you are a creator yourself, feel free to comment (you can promote your other videos) and pin it. After pinning, the comment is displayed as the first comment in the comment area.
Features and Benefits of highlighted Comments on YouTube
To further answer the question “What is a Recommended YouTube Comment?”, This section summarizes some of the features and benefits of HC.
A YouTube comment is shown as “Recommended” when you open the comment from a notification link, YouTube Studio, or email.
The aim is to make it easier for you to identify the comment that you opened from the link you clicked.
Highlighting a comment that you opened through a link is useful for distinguishing the comment from other comments.
The phrase “Highlighted Comment” displayed above in the comment is only visible to you. Other YouTube users only see it if the user has opened the comment via a notification link.
YouTube also has Highlighted Reply (HR). This is similar to HC because it is also a YouTube comment that you opened from a link. The only difference between HC and HR is that HC is an original comment, while HR is a response to a comment.
What is the Purpose of the Highlighted Comment on YouTube?
Guess it’s just the way YouTube directs you to a particular comment. That’s why they called it a Highlighted comment.
This usually happens when a comment you’ve left or a comment thread you’re on receives new activity in the form of a new comment or reply.
YouTube usually notifies you of your new activity through your email, notification bell, or the comments section of your YouTube dashboard. If you click to view comments or reply from here, YouTube will redirect you to the discussion thread. Video comment in question and place the highlighted tag on the new activity (a new answer or your comment).
As far as I can tell, this feature is only for our convenience and possibly to encourage further engagement in the comments section.
Take, for example, a video with a thousand or more comments. If you open this video as you normally would, it will take a while to go through all the comments to find your old comment or new answer.
With this feature, the new activity notification will open the YouTube video in question and automatically guide you to the particular comment while you “highlight” it to tell you, “that’s what brought you here.”
You can even activate this tag directly from the comment thread. Just click on a comment’s timestamp, and you should get a highlighted day.