How to Get Better Recommendations on YouTube

YouTube 's algorithm can be messy—one wrong click and your feed will be flooded with videos you're not interested in. But you don't have to live with bad recommendations.

Table of Contents

• 5. Clear history to refresh feed
• 4. Watch only videos that match your current interests
• 3. Only like videos you love
• 2. Control search history 
• 1. Use topics to filter suggestions

5. Clear history to refresh feed

YouTube's algorithm (or recommendation system) works by building a profile based on your watch history, search history, channel subscriptions, likes, dislikes, and responses ("Not interested" and "Not recommending channels"). This profile helps the system understand your interests and what you're less likely to watch.

While the algorithm uses other signals, your watch history is the primary way YouTube decides which videos to recommend. If you've decided to explore new interests and the videos appearing in your feed are no longer relevant, clearing your watch history can be a useful option.

Tip : Before clearing your history, you may want to keep some videos in Watch Later or other playlists.

To clear your watch history, open YouTube in your preferred browser. Navigate to the left menu and click History under You . Select Clear all watch history  from the right sidebar.

You can turn off watch history to make your recommendations a little more random. However, to get recommendations, you’ll need at least one video in your watch history. Otherwise, the home page will be blank, showing only a search bar and a menu on the left.

4. Watch only videos that match your current interests

Once you clear your watch history, you can start building your recommendations profile by searching for videos to watch that are closely related to your interests.

YouTube's algorithm relies on your watch history to recommend content. To get better recommendations on YouTube, avoid clicking on videos about topics you don't care about, even if you're just curious. You can also delete individual videos from your watch history.

Tip : To explore a topic on YouTube without affecting your recommendations, you can pause your watch history ( History > Pause watch history )

3. Only like 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 about your likes if you want great recommendations. Likes should be for content you want to see more of, not videos that are just mildly interesting.

While YouTube no longer displays dislike counts, it still affects YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. Disliking a video sends a signal to YouTube to recommend less similar content in the future.

To further refine your YouTube recommendations, remove likes from videos you're no longer interested in. You can access your Liked videos playlist through the left menu. To remove a video from your playlist, click the menu icon next to the video and select Remove from Liked videos .

2. Control search history

Your search history also influences the recommendations on your homepage, though not as much as your watch history. Like your watch history, you can edit, pause, or delete your YouTube search history at will.

To pause your search history, click your profile picture and select Your data in YouTube . Click the checkbox under YouTube Watch History and look for Include your searches on YouTube .

There is no separate option to delete search history. However, you can select Manage history and delete all YouTube activity for a certain period of time or delete it completely.

1. Use topics to filter suggestions

​The Home Feed typically has a few topics at the top of the page. These are topics that you've previously shown an interest in. Clicking on a topic opens a curated feed of videos related to that topic. YouTube uses your watch history to determine suggested topics and shows you more of what you'll want to see.

By following the above guidelines, you can adjust your YouTube recommendations and ensure that your feed is filled with videos that are truly curated for you. Since your YouTube recommendations can be tempting, you should learn to spend less time on YouTube to maintain a healthy balance.