Stop Getting Bad YouTube Recommendations in 4 Simple Steps

YouTube’s absolutely enormous wealth of videos means that relying on recommendations is the quickest way to find new content you’ll like, unless you want to spend a lot of time searching. Like most other platforms, YouTube’s algorithm picks up all kinds of signals from your activity to show you more of what you’re likely to continue watching. This is great most of the time, but sometimes the algorithm can trip up and show a lot of things you don’t care about.

If the site is showing you irrelevant suggestions in the right sidebar, at the end of videos, and on the homepage, you’re probably giving it the wrong idea of ​​what you like — or you’re not providing enough signals at all. The retraining may take some time, but you can teach YouTube to show more of what you like and less of what you don’t like.

You need to allow YouTube to keep track of your viewing history so it knows what you’re interested in. If the applicable setting is disabled, YouTube may even show you a blank homepage without any suggestions.

To enable this setting, click your profile icon at the top right of YouTube and choose Google account. On the Google Account page, select Data and privacy in the left sidebar, then choose Personalization settings. In this menu, find YouTube History and make sure it is enabled. THE Subparameters Checkboxes are optional but provide more data points to use in suggestions.

In this box, check the status of Automatic deletion Also. Google offers you the option of automatically deleting this data every three, 18 or 36 months. This means less information to use for recommendations, but it also gives the algorithm a more focused data set to work with.

Once you’re sure you have watch history enabled, the most important way to improve your recommendations is to give the site plenty of positive signals to work on. When you find a video you like, watch it all the way through and click As. Subscribe to creators you want to know more about and consider turning on notifications using the bell for your favorites. Leave comments to show your commitment. Search for what interests you and click on the videos that interest you.

Favorable feedback is important, but you can also provide YouTube with negative feedback. Hit Aversion on videos that are of no interest or that waste your time. When you see a recommendation that you don’t want to watch, click the button three points (…) button on it and choose Not interested. If you don’t like the whole channel, choose Do not recommend the channel instead. Make sure to unsubscribe from channels you no longer watch. And remember that hiding YouTube Shorts is its own option.

Negative signals are not perfect; you might see the same recommendations again after a while, and it takes time for the algorithm to change correctly. But combining these two elements will help teach the service what you’re likely to click on.

It’s easy to overwhelm YouTube with false signs that you’re interested in something, like a child using your account on an iPad or TV. If this happens in small doses, you can manually clear the unwanted activity. Use the X which appears in the search suggestions drop-down list to remove recent searches. Likewise, erase the videos by opening the History playlist in the left sidebar and choosing Delete from watch history in the three points (…) menu.

However, it’s best to prevent this from happening in the first place. If your family often watches YouTube using the TV app, for example, make sure you’ve added everyone’s accounts so that no one’s viewing habits affect everyone else’s suggestions. There is also an option to use the app without logging in, if necessary. If your kids keep choosing the wrong account, you can lock yours (separate from YouTube’s parental controls). In the YouTube TV app, open the account page by selecting your icon in the left bar, then choose the option Settings equipment under your account. Use the Account lock option to set a code that you must enter to use this account.

When you’re about to watch videos that you don’t want to influence your recommendations on a desktop or laptop, use private browsing. In the mobile app, go to You > Accounts > Enable private browsing. A stray video here or there shouldn’t have a huge effect, but it can proactively prevent you from sending bad signals to YouTube.

In the Personalization settings menu discussed earlier, the Manage YouTube history The link provides a complete list of what you have done on the platform and gives granular control over your historical data. As above, press the button X next to any entry to remove it from your journal. To filter the results, click on the calendar icon to show only entries older than a certain date or date research icon to search for specific terms.

This tool also has a DELETE to bulk delete your historical data from the service. You have options to delete data from today, a specific period, or all. Specific periods are suitable for when you have an unwanted viewing block, like if you’ve solved a car problem but don’t otherwise care about automotive videos.

You may have seen advice to completely clear your YouTube history to improve recommendations, but the decision to do so depends on your situation. If your suggestions are completely terrible and nothing you see is relevant, then deleting and starting again may work. When you’re starting from scratch, YouTube shows you the same “mass appeal” videos you see when you’re offline, and it takes time to create a revamped profile. If you go this route, it’s a good idea to have a list of channels you like handy so you can start recycling YouTube immediately after deleting.

Otherwise, more selective removal provides a better balance. If you really loved gardening six months ago but fell out of love with it recently, use the custom range option to clear the history for that period while keeping the more recent data. From there, giving YouTube the positive and negative signals discussed should result in fewer bad recommendations, and hopefully fewer videos botched by the AI, over time.