If your YouTube channel has become separated from your Google+ Page, and you’ve been racking your brain and Google search results trying to find a solution to the problem that doesn’t involve losing the hours you’ve spent garnering YouTube views or your beloved Google+ following, there is hope!
A lot of the tutorials out there will tell you to log into your YouTube channel, and go to the Settings menu, where you can change the Google+ page that your YouTube channel is attached to. If you try this route, you will find the tutorial you are following is out of date and will no longer work. But there is still a solution that will work with the updated Google+ / YouTube account structure.
For this tutorial – in order to move your YouTube channel from one Google+ page to a different Google+ page, one of your pages will need to be linked with a Google Maps / Google Local listing. The other page will need to be a non-local page, such as a brand, product, or service category of page. For example, if your YouTube channel is currently attached to a Google+ page for your brand, but you have a separate, primary Google+ page attached to your maps listing, follow the steps outlined here to merge the YouTube channel with your primary Google+ page.
1. Verify Your Company Pages on Google+
The Google+ page that you want to move your YouTube channel to should be a “Local” category of page. For this to happen, you will need to go through the Local/Maps verification process. This will include either receiving a phone call from Google or having Google mail you a postcard with a code that you will need to enter in to verify your business and address with Google. You can find requirements and guidelines for doing so here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778?hl=en.
NOTE: This will only work if ONE of the accounts you are trying to merge is a local/maps verified listing. If both the Google+ page your YouTube channel is currently attached to and the Google+ page you want to move your YouTube channel to are Local pages, this tutorial will not work for you. You will need to submit a request through Google directly here: https://support.google.com/youtube/contact/ytgplus.
2. Make the same user account the owner of both pages
In addition to verifying your local page with Google, you will also need to ensure the same user account has access to both of your Google+ pages. To give a user access to one of your accounts, go to the Google+ page from the account that has access, and click “Settings” from the left-hand menu.
Then select “Managers” from the Settings menu.
Select “Add Manager” and enter in the email address of the Google+ account you want to move your YouTube channel from.
You may be able to transfer the YouTube account to your Google+ account with just manager access. You may also need to make the local YouTube account the owner of your YouTube account before you can make the transfer. Google requires you to wait two weeks after making someone a manager before you can transfer ownership, so if manager access is not sufficient for merging the accounts, you will need to come back in two weeks to finish this tutorial.
3. Connect Your YouTube / Google+ Page to Your Google+ Local / Maps Listing
The final step for moving your YouTube channel to another Google+ page is to update the Google+ page with which your Google Maps listing is attached. To do this, you will go back to the Settings menu for your Google+ Local / Maps page, as seen below.
From the Settings page, scroll down to the bottom where you will see note that “This page is connected to Google maps” with an option to “Connect a different page.”
Click the Connect a different page button, and select the page your YouTube channel is attached to from the drop down. Then follow the steps to complete the process.
Now, instead of having 2 pages for your business, you will have one page titled “Backup of…” your page name, and the new page with your business name that is now the location of your Google Maps listing as well.
If needed, you can now re-name your Google+ page and your YouTube channel will automatically re-name itself to mirror the corrected Google+ page.