YouTube is getting rid of its Trending page and Trending Now list and moving towards category-specific charts as the trends themselves become more niche.
The change, which will happen over the next couple of weeks, comes as YouTube says it has seen visits to its Trending page decrease significantly over the last five years. The company attributes this change to more “micro-trends” and users relying more on recommendations, search suggestions, Shorts, comments and communities to find trending videos.
“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,” the company said in a blog post.
Instead, YouTube will show trending content in its YouTube Charts, which currently includes charts for trending music videos, weekly top podcast shows and trending movie trailers. The company will continue to add more category-specific charts over time.
Viewers will still receive personalized recommendations from YouTube. YouTube will also still continue to provide creators tools to determine what’s popular with their viewer base. However, it remains to be seen what kind of shakeup category-specific trending lists could have on creators and their trending rankings, as compared to one general list.
“We plan to continue to reflect the many ways trends emerge and are experienced by our global community,” the company added in the blog post.
