How to find YouTube affiliate links missing an FTC disclosure

Quick answer: YouTube gives you no way to check which descriptions contain an affiliate link without a disclosure — you'd have to open every video and read it. A disclosure checker does it for you: it scans every description on your channel, finds the ones with affiliate or sponsored links and no disclosure line, and adds the required wording right beside those links in one previewed run. Description Modifier includes this scan, with a preview before anything changes and full undo afterwards.

Why missing disclosures are a real risk

The FTC's endorsement guides are simple in principle: if you get paid — in money, commission, free product, or anything else of value — for recommending something, the audience has to be told, clearly, where they'll see it. On YouTube that means two places: spoken in the video, and written in the description next to the links themselves.

The problem isn't the videos you publish today. It's the back catalog. Most creators tighten up their disclosure habits over time, which leaves years of older videos with affiliate links and no disclosure at all — still being recommended, still earning commission, still fully public. Nobody ever goes back and checks, because checking means opening hundreds of videos one at a time.

What counts as a disclosure?

Plain words the viewer understands, positioned where they'll actually be read:

• Good: "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases." / "Some links below are affiliate links — I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you." / "This video is sponsored by X."
• Not enough: "#sp", "thanks to our partners", "collab", a disclosure buried at the very bottom of a 600-word description, or relying only on YouTube's paid-promotion checkbox.

Placement matters as much as wording. "Clear and conspicuous" means near the links, ideally above the "Show more" fold — not in a footer three scrolls down.

How do I find descriptions that are missing a disclosure?

The manual method: open each video in YouTube Studio, read the description, look for an affiliate URL, look for a disclosure line, move on. Twenty videos is an afternoon. Four hundred videos is not happening.

The scan method takes a couple of minutes:

1. Install Description Modifier and sign in with the Google account that owns the channel.
2. Open the disclosure checker. It reads every description on the channel and looks for known affiliate and sponsorship patterns — Amazon associate tags, shortened affiliate domains, common network links, tracking parameters, and sponsor URLs you add yourself.
3. It then checks each of those descriptions for disclosure wording, and lists the videos that have a paid link but no disclosure.
4. Pick a disclosure preset (or write your own line), preview exactly how each description will change, and run it. The line is inserted beside the links, not dumped at the bottom.
5. Every run saves an undo snapshot, so you can roll the whole batch back if the wording isn't right.

Why YouTube Studio can't do this

Studio's bulk editor can only append text to the top or bottom of your descriptions. It can't look inside a description, it can't tell which videos already have a disclosure, and it can't place a line next to a specific link. So the Studio approach is "paste the disclosure onto all 400 videos" — which double-discloses the videos that were already fine, and still puts the wording in the wrong place on the rest.

Reading inside the description is the whole difference. That's what makes a targeted fix possible: only the videos that need it, only where it belongs.

A sensible disclosure routine

• Audit once. Run the disclosure checker across the whole catalog and fix everything it flags in one batch.
• Standardise the wording. One line, used everywhere, so it's easy to find and easy to update later with find-and-replace.
• Re-scan quarterly. New affiliate programs, new sponsors and new links creep in — a quick scan every few months keeps the catalog clean.
• Pair it with a broken-link scan. The same descriptions that are missing disclosures usually contain a few dead affiliate links too. See how to find broken links in YouTube descriptions.

FAQ

Do I need an FTC disclosure on YouTube affiliate links?

Yes. Any financial connection — commission, free product, or payment — needs a clear disclosure the viewer will actually see, both in the video and beside the links in the description.

Is YouTube's "paid promotion" checkbox enough?

No. It satisfies YouTube's policy, but the FTC has said a platform's built-in disclosure is not a substitute for your own.

Where should the disclosure go?

Right before or beside the affiliate links, above the "Show more" fold where possible — not at the bottom of a long description.

Can I fix hundreds of old videos at once?

Yes. The disclosure checker flags every affected video and inserts your disclosure line beside the links in a single previewed run, with undo.

Is this legal advice?

No — this is a practical guide to finding and fixing missing disclosures. The FTC publishes its own endorsement guides, and if your situation is complicated, talk to a lawyer.

The short version

Disclosures aren't the hard part — finding the videos that are missing one is. Scan the catalog, fix the flagged videos in one run, keep the wording consistent, and re-scan every few months.

Check your channel for undisclosed affiliate links. Install Description Modifier for Chrome — free bulk edits to start, no card required. The disclosure checker and broken-link scanner are included on the paid plans.