After facing issues from ad-blockers, YouTube is experimenting with server-side ad injection.
The developer of SponsorBlock, which is a crowdsourced extension to skip sponsored segments, shared today that “YouTube is currently experimenting with server-side ad injection,” 9to5Google explained.
At a high-level, the new initiative is expected to tackle the ad-blocking issues.
What’s new?
With the new update, it looks like YouTube’s crackdown on tools that block advertising continues with server-side ad injection. With this feature ads will be directly added into the video stream.
This approach has the potential to safeguard against ad blocker tools like SponsorBlock, a crowdsourced extension designed to skip sponsored segments, ‘by offsetting all timestamps with ad times,’ 9to5Google explained. The developer of SponsorBlock has set up a server to reject submissions from browsers experiencing this issue to prevent incorrect data entries.
This method is expected to be a part of YouTube’s ongoing efforts to combat ad-blocking tools, including targeting third-party clients on mobile devices. Additionally, users are encouraged to subscribe to YouTube Premium as an alternative.
The plan ahead!
Experts suggest that the Server-side ad injection is a broader problem for full ad blockers, which YouTube has been working to counter through various means in the past year.
Currently, this feature is in the testing phase and not widely implemented. Critics argued that they were facing issues while testing its ad-servicing infrastructure. However, YouTube has not provided detailed information on the technical changes it made.
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