You don’t need me to tell you that YouTube is getting worse in all sorts of ways. From clickbait thumbnails to AI slop to Shorts being shoved into every corner of the service (and much more), it’s harder than ever to navigate and find what you’re looking for on YouTube.
It’s interesting to take a closer examination of one specific area of big problems like this to break them down. I recently had a renewed realization of how poor YouTube’s search results are, which I shouldn’t be surprised at, given how Google’s results have degraded over recent years.
Finding clear, human-made videos should not be this hard
YouTube shows you all the junk first
While writing my recent piece about how much speed you need from your ISP, I wanted to include a YouTube video that succinctly showed the differences between high and low ping while gaming. I’ve included similar videos illustrating various frame rates in games, so I figured one about ping would be easy to find.
I was terribly wrong, to the point where if you read that article, you’ll know it didn’t feature such a video. Let’s step through YouTube’s results for “game ping latency comparison” to illustrate this.
Shorts are a plague on YouTube
I don’t want to see them on desktop
First, we get a carousel of five Shorts. I despise these and wish you could hide them from the site (without using extensions to alter YouTube).
If you want to open a dedicated Shorts tab on your phone and scroll through those, fine. But I don’t want to see made-for-mobile videos as the first result on my desktop computer. They also have less text space for the title, so it’s harder to know if the video is what you’re looking for.
Taking the content on its own merits, the first video is well-made, but it doesn’t answer the question. It compares internet speed and ping for gaming, but doesn’t illustrate how increasing ping values affect gameplay.
The second video is an ad for an ISP company, then the third is a basic explanation of ping using generic stock footage. The fourth is an AI voiceover showing little of value. Meanwhile, the final one has zero views, terrible audio quality, and serves to promote a paid lag-reducing service.
Why are these the top five results when I’m looking for a comparison of high and low ping? None of them even comes close to what I’ve searched for.
More shorts, AI slop, and other garbage
This feels like page 20 of Google
Continuing, the “normal” results start with yet another Short. The video is, again, a baseline explanation of ping. It comes from an AI garbage channel with under 600 subscribers, using watermarked stock footage and an AI voiceover.
The next is the first non-Short video, but it doesn’t fulfill the search intent either. It compares the definitions of latency and ping, instead of showing how different ping values manifest.
After that, we get yet another round of Shorts. I’ll skip these for the sake of brevity, but know that they have the same problems with being low-quality and not answering what I came for.
Finally, something resembling an answer
Good videos are there if you look hard enough
The 13th video is the first that relates to what I searched: a Valorant streamer showing how ping differences can affect shots around corners. I didn’t feature this in my article because it’s a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, compared to the more illustrative look I wanted. (It also contains language, which I didn’t want to feature.)
Following this is a more general video about ping, which is what I decided to include in the article. That’s a total of 12 videos I had to scroll past before finding one that was related to my search.
Beyond that isn’t much better. There’s a third carousel of Recently uploaded Shorts, then three useless videos from the same garbage AI channel. Why is this worthless trash from a zero-effort channel nobody watches being shown as a result for my query? This shouldn’t even be allowed on YouTube, let alone featured in search results.
Result quality can differ per search
I’ve focused on one page of results, but the situation isn’t any better if you use different terms for the same question. Among other variations, “high vs low ping gaming” brings up a similar slew of results full of memes, low-quality Shorts, AI trash, and everything except what I’m looking for.
The 15th result for this search was the closest to what I was looking for: a 10-year-old video showing the differences between high- and low-ping players in Battlefield 4. It would be too long to feature in an article, but it’s the most robust explanation of the matter that I found.
I tried a couple of other searches, and the severity of these issues varies depending on the search. Looking for a comparison of God of War Ragnarök on PS4 and PS5 showed clear results immediately (with a normal video above the first Shorts reel).
I looked for a tutorial for a speedrunning trick used in the game Banjo-Kazooie, and the first two results were spot-on. The results for replacing the headlight bulbs on my car model were also good.
So while this isn’t a problem with every query, it still shouldn’t be this noticeable for any search. An illustration of ping in gaming isn’t obscure enough to require digging through the search results like this.
Even the subscriptions page isn’t safe
YouTube makes every tool worse
I’ve noticed that YouTube continues to require more effort for basic navigation in other ways, too. I usually watch YouTube using its TV apps, where the experience has deteriorated (like more than 18 months of the quality dropping to 480p when you speed up 60FPS videos).
Shorts being prioritized on a landscape device is also a problem on the TV apps, including them sitting near the top of the Subscriptions page. Recently, a new banner labeled Most relevant was also added to that page. This shows uploads from my subscribed-to channels that YouTube thinks I’ll most want to see.
But in my experience, this isn’t useful. It shows videos I’m not interested in, ones I’ve already watched, or those I’ve added to my Watch Later list but haven’t gotten to yet. I don’t need this when I already check the page multiple times a day. It only serves to confuse: you think a video is new, but it’s actually days old.
The Subscriptions page should be a simple chronological list, like it’s always been. It’s the main way I browse YouTube because it lets me keep up with videos from channels I actually want to watch without algorithmic nonsense. Apparently, even this small refuge from YouTube’s problems isn’t safe.
And the sidebar recommendations are ridiculous
The sidebar recommendations are often unhelpful, as well. I’ve been continually getting a recommendation for a members-only livestream announcement video… that’s five years old.
I understand YouTube pushing members-only videos because it wants to earn money from your membership. But could anything be less relevant than an announcement about a livestream that happened half a decade ago? Why would that make me want to purchase a membership?
You’ll also notice a video with under 500 views in the sidebar. While I appreciate the algorithm giving smaller channels a chance, there’s nothing special about a random gameplay video when thousands of hours of these are uploaded to YouTube every day. Did this really deserve to be the #3 recommended video?
YouTube shouldn’t be this hard to navigate
I can only imagine how difficult it is for YouTube’s systems to sift through the colossal mountains of garbage on the platform—especially now with AI. But with how much experience Google has in recommendations, the experience shouldn’t be this bad.
I’m curious to know if you’ve experienced the same issues or have seen these lousy recommendations in other parts of YouTube. It could be how I use YouTube for work and personal watching, but I doubt it. It feeds back into a search and visibility problem that services all over the web are having.
