Why Is YouTube Recommending Old Videos?

On almost a daily basis, people ask me: "Why is YouTube recommending old videos?" It's interesting when you think about it. In the past, YouTube valued recency and freshness heavily, but now more old videos are being recommended. What changed? Why are so many old videos being recommended?

Recently, YouTube decided to start recommending more old videos to YouTube users. This was done because many prominent content creators were suffering from intense burnout. Due to this, YouTube decided to lessen the importance of freshness so content creators wouldn't have to upload new videos so often to stay relevant.

As you might imagine, this change has been positively received by content creators. However, the reception hasn't been so positive among non-creators. Viewers want to see new videos- not old videos. But what can viewers do? Can they do anything to make it so YouTube recommends fewer old videos to them?

Why Does YouTube Keep Recommending Old Videos

Why does YouTube keep recommending old videos? Well, as I mentioned above, this was done to lessen the workload on content creators. Meaning, this was done to make it easier for content creators to not upload as frequently. The need to constantly upload new videos was causing major burnout among creators, so YouTube slightly devalued freshness.

It's in YouTube's best interest to keep content creators happy. After all, content creators provide the content that viewers consume- not YouTube. YouTube makes money by showing ads on videos. Since this is the case, making it easier for content creators not to feel so burned out will in turn lead to more videos and more revenue for YouTube.

Of course, this doesn't mean that creators can upload 1 video a year and expect to grow. Ultimately, what this change did was make it easier for old videos to gain views so channels don't start to die. If a creator wants to grow their channel, however, they will still need to upload new videos frequently.

While it can be annoying as a user to get recommended old videos, it benefits content creators very much. YouTube makes it so being a content creator isn't such a time-sensitive job makes it easier for higher quality content to be created. This leads to better new videos for viewers to watch.

Is There a Solution to This Problem?

You might be wondering- is there a way to stop getting recommended old YouTube videos that you don't like? Or, is this just something you will have to live with as a user? Well, there are some different things that you can try, but for the most part, you will need to deal with getting recommended old videos.

Something that might be worth trying is increasing your subscriptions. In other words, you might get recommended less old videos if you subscribe to more channels. You see, YouTube recommends videos from your subscriptions in the same locations they recommend old videos. In theory, the new videos from your subscriptions should outnumber the old videos.

Another thing you can do is tell YouTube you are not interested in the old videos that are recommended to you. Doing this will cause YouTube to recommend the old videos to you less often. This can lead to more recently uploading videos being recommended to you more often.

At the end of the day, it's difficult to bypass features put in place by consciously YouTube. Old videos are being recommended more frequently on purpose. As I mentioned, some things can be done to limit the number of old videos you are recommended. However, you will never be able to completely stop this from happening.

Conclusion

Being a content creator on YouTube isn't as easy as it seems. It's not unusual for creators to suffer from burnout due to the number of videos they need to post. Recently, however, YouTube has lessened the load on creators by starting to recommend more old videos. While users sometimes find this annoying, it helps many content creators avoid burnout.

If content creators struggle to create new videos due to burnout, there will be fewer new videos to watch. Since this is the case, In a way, YouTube recommending old videos more frequently leads to more new videos, as it becomes easier for content creators to create new videos when they aren't burned out.