YouTube’s algorithm can be a mess—one wrong click and your feed is flooded with videos you don’t care about. But you don’t have to live with bad recommendations.
5Delete Your History for a Clean Slate
YouTube’s algorithm (or recommendation system)works by building up a profile using your watch history, search history, channel subscriptions, likes, dislikes, and feedback (“Not interested” and “Don’t recommend channel”). This profile gives the system a good idea of what your interests are and what you are less likely to watch.
While the algorithm uses other signals, your watch history is the primary way YouTube decides what videos to suggest. If you have decided to explore new interests and the videos coming up in your feed are no longer relevant,clearing your watch historycan be a helpful option.
Before clearing your history, you can keep some of the videos in Watch Later or another playlist.
To clear your watch history, open YouTube in your preferred browser. Navigate to the left-hand menu and clickHistoryunder theYousection. SelectClear all watch historyfrom the right sidebar.
You can leave watch history off to make your recommendations a bit random. However, to get recommendations, you’ll need at least one video in your watch history. Otherwise, thehomepage remains blank, with only the search bar and left-hand menu visible.
4Watch Only Videos That Fit Your Current Interests
After clearing your watch history, you can start building your recommendation profile by searching for videos to watch. These videos should be closely related to your likes and interests.
YouTube’s algorithm bases content suggestions on viewing history. To get better recommendations on YouTube, avoid clicking on videos about topics that don’t interest you, even if you’re just curious. You can also remove individual videos from your watch history.
To explore a topic on YouTube without affecting your recommendations, you can temporarily pause your watch history (History > Pause watch history)
3Like Only Videos You Love
The Like button is another important signal to the YouTube algorithm. While every YouTuber asks for likes and comments on their videos, you have to be selective with your likes if you want great recommendations. Likes should be given to content you want to see more of, not mildly interesting videos.
AlthoughYouTube no longer shows dislike counts, dislikes still influence its recommendation algorithm. Disliking videos sends a signal to YouTube to recommend less similar content in the future.
To further refine YouTube recommendations, remove likes from videos that no longer interest you. TheLiked videosplaylist is accessible through the left-hand menu. To remove a video from the playlist, click the menu icon next to the video and chooseRemove from Liked videos.
2Control Your Search History
Your search history also influences your homepage recommendations, although not as much as your watch history. Just like the watch history, your YouTube search history can be edited, paused, or cleared at your discretion.
To pause your search history, click on your profile picture and selectYour data in YouTube. Click the checkbox underYouTube Watch Historyand findInclude your searches on YouTube. I leave this option unchecked because I prefer less clutter when I search and I don’t want my searches influencing my recommendations.
There is no separate option for deleting search history. However, you can selectManage historyand clear all YouTube activity within a certain time range or completely.
1Use Topics to Filter Your Recommendations
The homepage feed usually has a selection of topics at the top of the page. These are topics that you have previously shown interest in. Clicking on a topic opens a curated feed of videos related to it. YouTube relies on your watch history to determine suggested topics and show more of what you want to see.
By following the above guidelines, you may tune your YouTube recommendations and ensure that your feed is filled with videos that are truly curated for you. Since your YouTube recommendations may become irresistible, you should learnhow to spend less time on YouTubeto maintain a healthy balance.
