How to turn on comments on YouTube (and why it matters)
TL;DR: Turning on comments on YouTube takes about 30 seconds in YouTube Studio. Open comment sections signal higher engagement to the algorithm, which directly affects how often your videos get recommended.
How to turn on comments on YouTube
You can enable comments on any YouTube video in under a minute. Go to YouTube Studio, select the video you want to update, click "Details," scroll to "Comments and ratings," and set the dropdown to "Allow all comments." Save. Done. If you want to catch anything spammy before it goes live, choose "Hold all comments for review" instead, which gives you moderation control without turning off engagement entirely.
That is the short answer. The longer one is about why this setting matters more than most creators realize, and what you should do with your comment section once it is open.
Why the algorithm cares about your comment section
YouTube's recommendation engine weighs multiple engagement signals when deciding how often to push your content. According to YouTube's own creator documentation, the platform measures watch time, click-through rate, and post-watch engagement (likes, shares, and comments) to determine a video's relevance and reach. A comment section full of real conversation is a strong signal that viewers finished the video and had something to say about it.
Comments do not boost your ranking directly in the way watch time does. But they feed a chain reaction. Viewers who comment tend to watch longer. They return for future videos. They click notifications. Each of those behaviors feeds the metrics YouTube actually counts. A 2023 analysis by Pew Research Center found that the most-recommended YouTube videos averaged significantly more comments per view than videos that rarely surfaced in recommendations, even when view counts were similar. Opening your comment section is one of the lowest-effort moves you can make to increase organic reach.
Step-by-step: turning comments on for existing videos
Most new YouTube channels have comments enabled by default, but older videos, videos posted during a policy change, or videos you accidentally set to restricted mode may have them turned off. Here is how to fix that for any video.
- Sign in at studio.youtube.com
- Click "Content" in the left sidebar to see your video list
- Find the video and click the pencil icon ("Details")
- Scroll down to the "Comments and ratings" section
- Open the dropdown and select "Allow all comments" or "Hold potentially inappropriate comments for review"
- Click "Save" in the top right corner
The change takes effect immediately. If you want to bulk-update multiple videos at once, select them using the checkboxes in the Content view, click "Edit," and choose "Comments" from the dropdown. You can set the same comment setting across dozens of videos in one action.
Turning comments on channel-wide by default
To avoid having to set this for every upload, go to YouTube Studio, click "Settings" in the lower-left sidebar, then select "Community." Under "Default settings," you can set your default comment policy for all future uploads. Change this to "Allow all comments" and every new video you post will have the comment section open automatically.
Why some videos cannot have comments enabled
Two situations permanently lock the comment section. First, videos labeled "Made for Kids" under COPPA compliance cannot have comments at all. YouTube disables them to protect minor viewers, and there is no override for this category. Second, private videos never have a comment section, regardless of your settings. If you need comments, the video must be public or unlisted. Unlisted videos do support comments, which is useful if you want to share a video with a specific audience without broadcasting it publicly.
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Managing your comment section without losing your mind
An open comment section is only valuable if you engage with it. Creators who reply to comments within the first few hours of publishing see measurably better results: early engagement signals to the algorithm that the video is generating real conversation, which can accelerate the recommendation window. You do not need to reply to every comment. Replying to a handful of the most substantive ones in the first 60 minutes is enough to move the needle.
YouTube provides several tools to keep the section from becoming a liability.
- Held for review: The platform's spam filter automatically holds comments that look like spam or contain flagged content. You can review and approve them in the "Comments" tab of YouTube Studio.
- Blocked words: In Settings > Community > Automated filters, you can add specific words or phrases to a blocklist. Any comment containing them goes straight to the held queue.
- Moderators: You can assign other users as moderators. They can approve and remove comments on your behalf, which matters if your channel is growing faster than you can personally manage.
YouTube's moderation team removed over 1.1 billion comments in the third quarter of 2022 alone. The vast majority were spam, content that put minors at risk, or targeted harassment. That context matters: the platform is already doing a lot of filtering before comments reach your section. Your real moderation burden is much lighter than most creators fear.
How your YouTube comment section connects to your link-in-bio strategy
Your comment section is a direct channel to your most engaged viewers. These are the people most likely to follow a link, sign up for something, or buy something you recommend. The creators who capitalize on this are the ones who treat the comment section as the start of a relationship, not just a feedback box.
The practical move is to make sure the link you are pointing people toward is worth clicking. Most YouTube creators drop a single link in every video description: their bio page. If that page is slow, plastered with someone else's branding, or disconnected from your SEO, you are losing a significant portion of that warm traffic before it converts.
This is where your link-in-bio setup matters more than most creators acknowledge. A profile page with a custom domain (yourname.com rather than linktree.com/yourname) is indexed by Google as your content. It earns backlinks. It shows up in search results. Every engaged commenter who follows your link lands on a page that reinforces your brand, not your link tool's brand. MyLinks.page lets you connect your own custom domain on Pro on the free tier, no forced branding, and built-in click analytics so you can see exactly which YouTube-sourced traffic converted. The difference in click-through rate between a branded custom domain and a generic link aggregator URL is real, and it compounds across every video you publish.
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Common mistakes creators make with YouTube comments
Turning comments on is easy. Getting them wrong takes slightly more effort.
The most common mistake is enabling comments and never checking them. Unanswered questions in your comment section look bad to new viewers who scroll before watching. They also represent missed relationship-building. Viewers who ask questions and get no response are far less likely to subscribe or return.
The second mistake is disabling comments the moment a video gets any negative feedback. Negative comments are normal. A video with only positive comments looks suspicious to experienced viewers. The better move is to pin a thoughtful response to any valid criticism, which actually improves your credibility rather than hurting it.
Third: do not use your comment section as a pure broadcast channel. Creators who only post links and announcements in their own comments sections see engagement drop fast. The section exists for conversation. Ask a question at the end of your video, pin it as the top comment, and respond to the answers. That single habit can double your comment count on a video within 24 hours.
Turning comments on is the floor, not the ceiling
An open comment section is table stakes. Every serious creator has one. What separates channels that grow from channels that plateau is what they do with that comment section: reading it for content ideas, replying to build loyalty, using it to understand which topics land and which miss, and pointing that engaged audience toward a link-in-bio that is actually worth landing on.
Start with the settings change above. Then build the habit of spending ten minutes after each publish reading and responding to early comments. Then make sure the link in your description leads somewhere that reflects the quality of the content your audience just watched. Those three steps cost nothing except attention, and they compound.