Starting from an online video-sharing platform to the second most visited search engine today, YouTube’s journey is simply incredible. YouTube has become bigger and better over the years. Now along with watching videos, you can also watch shorts and post pictures, and get connected with people. But my favorite thing is to read comments. I believe the comments section turns YouTube into an interactive platform where people can express their views and thoughts.
If you too like to scroll through the comments section while watching any video on YouTube, you must have noticed that some comments are tagged as highlighted. A lot of the YouTube audience is perplexed about what does highlighted comments mean on YouTube.
- Straightforward Answer
When you receive a notification of a comment posted on your video, if you click that notification, that comment is made Highlighted Comment. You will see that comment at the top of all the comments. There are other ways too in which a comment can be made highlighted. The highlighted comment is account-specific which means if a comment is showing highlighted to you will not show highlighted to other users.
Let’s dive deep into this to know more about Highlighted Comments on YouTube. This feature is different from the ‘Pin Comment’ feature.
What Does Highlighted Comment Mean On YouTube?
The “Highlighted Comment” feature of YouTube is quite misunderstood. It may not be what you think it is. I personally feel that this feature was much needed and it is next to impossible to find any one specific comment out of thousands of them. So let me take this as an opportunity to clear out the meaning of highlighted comment on YouTube.
When any comment on a YouTube video is highlighted, it will appear in gray with a ‘Highlighted’ tag next to the commentator’s name. Plus, replies to comments you do are also highlighted.
All the comments highlighted by YouTube are tagged as “Highlighted Comment” and are shown at the top of the comment thread, but that is only for you. A comment that you are seeing highlighted may not be visible as highlighted to others.
So, it is easier to find a highlighted comment. It is also interesting to note that YouTube creates a new URL whenever a reply or a comment is highlighted.
Educate yourself here knowing more about how to see highlighted comments on youtube.
When YouTube Highlights Any Comment?
There could be many instances when YouTube chooses to highlight any comment on any video. I myself have closely observed this for many days and conclude that YouTube highlights any comment in the following cases.
When You Tap A Notification From YouTube
Whenever anyone comments on your YouTube video, YouTube never fails to send you a notification so that you don’t miss it. This notification will be sent to your mobile phone directly or you may also check received notifications in the notification corner of the YouTube website/App. When you tap on such notifications, you will be directly taken to that particular comment. It will have a highlighted tag and will show you above all of the comments.
Comments Timestamp
The timestamp is a wonderful feature of YouTube videos, which I personally believe is. It helps me a lot to directly navigate the part of the video that sounds relevant to me. And this in turn saves a lot of time as well. When a viewer clicks on the timestamp, the platform displays all the relevant comments also at the top of the list.
See the below screenshot, there is one comment already highlighted. But, let’s make another one highlighted. For this, you have to click on the timestamp next to the commenter’s name.
When I clicked the timestamp it shows as a highlighted comment.
Highlighted Reply
YouTube not only highlights comments but also replies to those comments. Say if you comment on someone’s video and some other person or the author or anyone replies to that comment, YouTube immediately sends you the notification. When you tap or click on that notification, the reply comment will be highlighted. This highlighted comment (reply in this case) will be seen as highlighted only when you tap on the notification otherwise it will not be tagged as highlighted.
This is how the highlighted comment feature helps me to navigate to the comments of my interest. Otherwise, imagine how tedious it will be to find one comment out of hundreds of comments.
How To Highlight a Comment on YouTube?
Comments can be highlighted by anyone irrespective of the video uploader or just a random viewer.
Here I’m explaining to you how. Read the steps below carefully and follow them in a web browser, not in the mobile app.
- Go to the video on which you wish to create a link for highlight comments.
- Scroll down to see all the comments and select the comment you like to highlight.
- Every comment will show how old it is. The time when the comment is made is written next to the commentator’s name. Click on that mentioned time.
- When you click on the timestamp, that comment will become highlighted, and in the address bar some codes will be added to the video URL. The whole URL if you share with someone he/she can see the same comment as highlighted.
You may copy that link and share it with anyone outside YouTube. It happens that you like a comment and want to share it with others or like to draw other viewers’ attention to it. Generating and sending the link is an impressive idea when if you want someone to look at a particular comment, you can just make that highlighted to generate a URL for that, and then copy the URL, and send that.
In all the above cases, the highlighted comment is only for the person meant to be and not for the public as a whole. But, the comments highlighted by you can also show to others as highlighted if you copy the highlighted comment URL, and ask other people to access the video through that link only.
How To Remove Highlighted Comments on YouTube?
Yeah! This is also important to know how to remove highlighted comments on YouTube. This is because sometimes you want to highlight comments and then you again want to unhighlight them. As I told you in the previous section, YouTube creates a specific URL for highlighted comments. To undo this action, all you need to do is restore the original URL. Just remove the “&lc” parameter and the part after it from the URL as you can see in the screenshot below. Doing this will restore the URL to the original and the highlighted tag from the comment will be removed. However, the comment will not be removed. It will still be there unless the author deleted it.
What Does It Mean When Your Comment is Pinned on YouTube?
So far I have spoken about the highlighted comment and how it helps. There is another YouTube feature which is Pinned comments. Many users often get confused between the two but the difference is very clear.
Using Pin Comment Feature, any video creator or the one who is uploading the video may Pin any comment on the top of the video. This pin comment will be shown above all the comments for everyone. Make a note that only the uploader of the video can Pin comments and no one else.
Pin comment helps video creators by channelizing the vocal war in the comments section positively and constructively. There could be hundreds of perspectives in watching any video but what the creator wants to convey needs to be respected. Plus, many YouTubers give information in the Pin comment like links, etc. However, there is a description box for the same.
How to Pin Comments on YouTube?
For pinning a comment, you must have to log into your YouTube account because only the creator can pin comments on his video.
Just go to the comment you want to pin, and next to it, you will Three vertical Dots menu. Click on that, and click Pin.
And, then, you will the Pinned Tag on the comment.
How The Pin Comment Feature is Different From Highlight Comments?
The Major difference between Pinned and Highlighted Comments is that Pin comment is pinned for everyone and can be pinned by only the video creator. Meaning to say that it is pinned for everyone else. However, when a comment is highlighted, it is highlighted only for the person receiving the notification and shown only to the person who highlights it using any methods of highlighting as explained earlier in this article. This means that the same comment might not be highlighted for others.
Is a Highlighted Comment on Youtube Bad?
A lot of YouTube consumers think that highlight comments are good, while some others think that it is not worth it. So, is a highlighted comment on YouTube bad?
The main idea of YouTube behind highlighting comments is quite similar to the bookmark feature. Popular videos with huge subscriptions often have thousands of comments and out of them searching the one is nothing but another way of wasting time. This is the reason that YouTube came up with the feature of highlighting comments. So, in my opinion, it is definitely a good and much-needed feature.
Conclusion
YouTube has become a synonym for videos today. It is the biggest hub for watching any type of video from entertainment to education. In such a case, people express freely their opinion in the comments section which of course makes the platform even better. Highlighting comments is therefore an essential feature for giving references and bookmarking any comment or reply. Hope I would be of help in understanding the idea.
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