Where can I put links on YouTube, and why aren’t links in Shorts clickable?

This is based on the YouTube Help overview “Sharing links with your audiences”, plus the help pages on channel profiles, related videos, brand deal links, end screens and YouTube Shopping affiliate, read on 22 October 2026. An end screen sits in the last 5 to 20 seconds of a video, and the video has to be at least 25 seconds long.

For posts, the links overview isn’t clear in itself. It lists posts as non-clickable, but with the same asterisk as long-form videos: to add clickable external links, you need advanced features. The features overview counts clickable links in posts as an advanced feature. For the related video, the help pages do contradict each other: its own page names advanced features, while the features overview already lists it from phone verification. Test cases like these on a post or Short of your own before you rely on them.

YouTube announced the change on 10 August 2023 in its own help community. The reason given: Shorts had made it easier for spammers to share links to malware, phishing or scams in comments and descriptions. YouTube said that from 31 August 2023, links in Shorts comments and descriptions and in the vertical live feed would gradually become non-clickable.

In their place, YouTube announced prominent channel links near the “Subscribe” button from 23 August 2023, and said it would start introducing a safer way to send Shorts viewers to other content on the same channel by the end of September. Today that role is filled by channel profile links and the related video in a Short. Its current help still gives spam and scam attempts as the reason.

According to the features overview, advanced features include clickable links in long-form video descriptions and in posts, clickable links in your channel details on the watch page, and pinning comments. Only the person who owns the channel can verify; YouTube calls them the “primary owner”.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio on a computer and click Settings, Channel and “Feature eligibility”. Features you already have show “Enabled”.
2. Under “Intermediate features”, verify your phone number. YouTube sends you a code by text or voice call.
3. For advanced features, YouTube says active channels usually have enough channel history already. If you don’t want to wait, choose ID or video verification under “Advanced features”. YouTube doesn’t offer either option to every creator.
4. For ID verification, the date of birth on your ID has to match the one in your Google Account. YouTube says the review usually takes 24 hours. If your second attempt is rejected as well, you have to wait 30 days before trying ID or video verification again. You can keep building channel history in the meantime.
5. Make your most important link the first channel link: in YouTube Studio, go to Customization and Profile, click “Add link” under “Links”, enter a title and URL and publish.
6. Add a related video to your Shorts: in YouTube Studio, open Content, click the Short, choose a video from your channel and save. The video has to be public or unlisted.

A URL in a Short’s description or comments isn’t clickable. Four routes still lead viewers on, and the first two work for your own storefront.

• Channel link: the first of your up to 14 channel links is shown prominently near “Subscribe”. Say in the Short or show on screen that the products are linked there.
• Related video: a clickable link to a video on your channel appears below your channel handle. Pick a long-form video with the product links in its description.
• Brand deal link: it appears as a sticker on the Short, in the description or both, but only if the brand or its agency reports the partnership through YouTube Creator Partnerships. You add it in the app while uploading, under “Paid promotion & brands”. It has to lead directly to that brand’s website, so it won’t work for your own storefront link.
• YouTube Shopping affiliate: links from this programme are clickable according to the links overview; you tag products in your videos for this. According to YouTube Help, one requirement is a channel in the YouTube Partner Program. The YouTube Blog says the programme has been rolling out in Germany since 3 September 2026, but on 22 October 2026 the help page’s country list doesn’t include Germany yet.

Disclosure depends on what’s behind the link, not on the route there. Under the German media authorities’ guidelines (May 2025), pointing people to an online shop out of commercial interest has to be labelled as advertising, and that already includes simply mentioning it. The guidelines say affiliate links have a commercial character too. So a Short that points to your storefront with affiliate links needs to be labelled as advertising.

For affiliate links, the guidelines call for a symbol such as an asterisk and an explanation right next to the link, so in a video description it goes directly with the links. If you label in text, “Werbung” (advertising) works best as the first word, and the label has to be visible without scrolling or expanding anything. The label word stays German: the guidelines name “Werbung”, “Anzeige” or “bezahlte Werbepartnerschaft” and say that abbreviations like “ad” or wording like “sponsored by” aren’t enough. If the product is the focus of the video, the guidelines call for a permanent “Werbung” label on screen, so “Werbung” in the description isn’t enough on its own. Check on your phone that the label in a Short’s description shows without expanding.

A brand deal link always comes from a partnership the brand reports to YouTube. For links from an advertising partnership, the guidelines call not for an asterisk but for “Werbung” or “Anzeige”, clearly legible right next to the link. If the brand’s product only plays a minor role in the video, “enthält Produktplatzierung” (contains product placement) or “Unterstützt durch [product name]” (supported by) at the start is enough, but only as long as the video doesn’t show where to buy it or a discount code. Otherwise the guidelines treat the video or that sequence as advertising. According to YouTube Help, the brand deal link itself leads to the brand’s site or a product page. If you show it as a sticker on the Short, that alone can count as showing where to buy.

YouTube may not show the note in the channel link title next to the first link in every view; the help page doesn’t say. That’s why the template also puts the explanation in your channel description. Only write the sentence about the price if it’s true for the shops you link to.

Werbung | Products from this video:
Olive jacket (I’m wearing a medium): [link]*
Trainers: [link]*
Everything in my shop: [link]*

*Affiliate links: if you click or buy through these links, I earn a fee or commission, depending on the shop. The price stays the same for you.

On screen for the whole video, if the products are the focus:
Werbung

Channel link title:
Werbung: My shop (affiliate links*)

First sentence of the channel description:
*The products in my shop are linked with affiliate links: if you click or buy through them, I earn a fee or commission, depending on the shop.

On screen for the whole Short:
Werbung

Text in the Short:
Everything from this video is linked on my channel.

Short description:
Werbung | You’ll find the products through the first link on my channel profile or in the description of the related video, linked there with affiliate links*.
*If you click or buy through these links, I earn a fee or commission, depending on the shop.

Under the external links policy, links to content that breaks the Community Guidelines are not allowed, for example pornography, malware or phishing. This covers videos, channels, comments, pinned comments and live streams. And it doesn’t only apply to clickable URLs: an address you show on screen, disguise (such as writing “dot com”) or say in the video also counts as a link.

The same policy says affiliate content doesn’t violate YouTube’s Terms of Use. Posting affiliate content excessively in dedicated accounts can break the spam rules, though.

If YouTube can’t verify that a link is safe, it may remove the link. If a URL in the video or its metadata breaks the policy, the whole video can be removed. A first violation usually gets a warning, and three strikes within 90 days can get the channel terminated.

Because a URL in a Short isn’t clickable, it helps to have one link that leads to the products from all your videos. That can be your wyrld storefront: a page of its own on wyrld.de, live right after you sign up. Make it your first channel link so it sits near “Subscribe”, and link it in your long-form video descriptions once your channel has advanced features. In the storefront you can, for example, set up a collection for each video and show the products with up to five of your own images per product. In the Short, you then only need to say which collection the items are in.

The work per product is one link: you paste, say, the link to the olive jacket from your video, wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops and automatically creates an affiliate link for each offer it finds. You don’t sign up with any network yourself. If wyrld finds the product at several shops, your community sees the offers side by side with their prices and buys directly from the shop, at no extra cost. According to Bitkom (2022), 65% of online shoppers in Germany say the lowest price is a decisive factor when choosing a shop. Depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both, and you receive a Gutschrift (self-billing credit note) at the start of the following month. wyrld is free for creators.

If you work with an agency, it manages your storefront with you from its own dashboard and sees the same numbers. Any commission share you agree on is deducted from your earnings in the monthly statement, and you each receive your own credit note. wyrld’s creator terms don’t require exclusivity, so as far as wyrld is concerned, your up to 14 channel links can include links to other programmes as well. What those programmes allow is set out in their own terms. You label your videos and your storefront link yourself; as the creator, that’s your responsibility.