How YouTube Algorithm Works

The YouTube algorithm has one goal, suggest videos that’ll keep a viewer glued to their screen. Many video creators, whether professional YouTubers or brands on YouTube, regard the YouTube algorithm as a complete mystery—a higher power that rules over their view counts, completely outside of their control. You might be wondering, how does your content get to the right audience? It's through the YouTube algorithm. But what is the YouTube algorithm and how does it work? Here, we’ll walk through the YouTube algorithm and how it works.

Shortspilot

January 30, 2025
3 min read
How YouTube Algorithm Works

What Is the YouTube Algorithm?

Algorithms are used by every social media platform to serve users relevant content. It is a set of scientific or mathematical rules used by social media platforms to determine what content a user most wants to see and in what order. The algorithm’s job is to rank content based on the likelihood that a viewer will watch it using signals like relevance, quality, and user behavior.

How does the YouTube algorithm work?

YouTube’s algorithm is all about helping its users find the most relevant content as easily as possible. YouTube’s entire goal is to increase customer retention and keep its users watching videos for as long as they can. YouTube remains a dominant force in the world of video marketing. So, how does your video end up on someone’s homepage? When you put a video up on YouTube, it doesn’t go directly from your fingertips to the eyeballs of your potential viewer. Rather, it then moves to the YouTube algorithm. If you only take one thing away from this article, it should be that YouTube wants you to focus on your audience, not the algorithm.

YouTube Trending Videos Algorithm

YouTube’s Trending feed is not personalized according to user behavior but rather determined by the popular videos or Shorts in a user’s country. The list refreshes every 15 minutes. It compiles the most popular videos of the moment as well as identifies creators that are gaining in popularity. These results are specific to the user’s country and aim to combine popularity with novelty. YouTube’s trending algorithm considers things like:

  • View count
  • How quickly the video is generating views
  • Videos that are popular in the region where a specific user is located
  • How the video performs compared to other recent uploads from the same channel
  • Videos with high audience engagement in a short period.

YouTube Search Algorithm

The YouTube search engine is powerful. After all, the platform is owned by Google. To make sure your videos appear in specific user searches, you’ll need to give YouTube as much information about your video as possible and ensure it’s accurate. To fully understand the principles of the YouTube algorithm for views, we only need to analyze the principles of its search, namely, the scenario according to which the ranking algorithm works in the YouTube search results. In particular, ranking in the search is determined by:

  • The accuracy of keywords in the title, description, and YouTube tags
  • What videos drive the most engagement for a search
  • Videos that have driven the most watch time as they relate to the search query

YouTube Home Page Algorithm

Home is where YouTube users land when they first open the YouTube app or visit YouTube.com. When you head to YouTube, you’re greeted by a wall of ready-made content. Chances are, you’re already interested in most of it, right? The homepage is personalized in this way for every single user. The selection of videos is based on:

  • Performance
  • Watch and search history
  • Popular topics
  • Subscriptions

YouTube Suggested Videos Algorithm

YouTube Suggested Videos are recommended alongside the video users are watching on the right side of their screen on the web and are ranked “to offer your audience videos they’re most likely to watch next,” YouTube says. Suggested videos show up next to the video you’re watching. Their list is influenced by:

  • Similarity to the current video
  • Time spent watching the current video and other videos on a similar topic
  • Content that was liked by other viewers who watched the current video.
  • A user’s own watch history

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3 Easy Steps to make your contents using Shortspilot.ai

1. Click "Create New Series".

2. Connect your social media channel and choose one of many niches from the drop down, select your preferred voice and language then click on "create", wait for less than a minute and your video is ready!

3. Adjust the script or the title as needed and click on update, then post video and it will automatically be posted on your preferred social media platform.