YouTube’s making a change to its in-app discovery elements, with the removal of its “Trending” and “Trending Now” listings, which will be replaced by a series of category-specific charts.
The update aims to align with emerging user behaviors across different content categories, and encourage more focused topical engagement.
As explained by YouTube:
“Back when we first launched the Trending page in 2015, the answer to ‘what’s trending?’ was a lot simpler to capture with a singular list of viral videos that everyone was talking about. Today, trends consist of many videos created by many fandoms, and there are more micro-trends enjoyed by diverse communities than ever before. Viewers increasingly learn about trends in different places across YouTube – from recommendations and search suggestions to Shorts, comments and Communities. With these shifts, we’ve seen visits to the Trending page decrease significantly, especially over the last five years.”
As such, YouTube’s switching to a new system that will provide more insight into a broader range of categories, via its Charts page.
“Moving forward, you’ll be able to find the most popular content in specific categories on YouTube Charts. Today you can explore charts for Trending Music Videos, Weekly Top Podcast Shows, and Trending Movie Trailers. We’ll continue to add more content categories to charts over time.”
YouTube further notes that the Gaming Explore page will remain the go-to destination for trending gaming videos.
So it’s a significant change in some ways, but one that’s more aligned with emerging behaviors, and putting more focus onto specific niche topics and verticals in the app. Which should drive more users towards its charts listings, and improve targeted trend discovery, but then again, not having those trending displays shown as prominently in-stream could also have an impact on this.
Though YouTube’s algorithm already shows you the most popular content related to your interests, and maybe, as YouTube notes, the broader trend lists just aren’t as effective as its existing systems to present trending niche content.
Algorithmic recommendations are also more aligned with keeping users scrolling, as opposed to tapping into another section of the app. And maybe that alone is reason enough to make the change.
Indeed, YouTube does also note that it will keep showing viewers the videos that it thinks they’ll like through personalized recommendations.
“This way, we can show a wider range of popular content that’s relevant, and it feels more natural to how viewers already find new videos. Viewers can still browse content that isn’t personalized in the Explore menu, on creator channels, and in their subscriptions feed.”
So it seems like YouTube’s found that keeping people scrolling through Shorts is better, rather than distracting them with trending alerts and lists in-stream.
That could impact discovery, but then again, the more time people spend watching, the more likely they’ll be shown your content, if it’s something they’ve shown an interest in.
