YouTube has a tremendous amount of video content — over 500 hours are uploaded every minute! Without a robust search function, finding what you need would be nearly impossible. That's why YouTube’s search ranking system is designed to help you quickly find what you’re looking for.
YouTube’s search ranking system
YouTube’s system prioritizes three key elements for best results. The importance of these elements may vary by search type. The elements are:
- Relevance
- Engagement
- Quality
To estimate relevance we look into many factors, such as how well the title, tags, description, and video content match your search query. Engagement signals are a valuable way to determine relevance. We look at overall user engagement, such as the watch time of a particular video for a particular query to determine if the video is considered relevant to the query by other users. Finally, for quality, our system is designed to identify signals that can help determine which channels demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness on a given topic.
In addition to the three key elements, we strive to deliver personally relevant search results. For that reason, our system may also consider your search and watch history; if you have it turned on. That’s why your search results might differ from another user’s search results for the same query.
Managing potentially sensitive search results
To help you discover content safely, we've implemented measures for search queries that might lead to potentially sensitive or graphic content.
When your search query is identified as seeking this type of content, search result thumbnails will be blurred by default. Inline video playback will also be turned off. This gives you a moment to review the results before deciding to view the video. You'll still see the video title, channel name, and details, helping you decide if it's what you're looking for. If you prefer to view the thumbnails as usual, you'll always have the option to turn off blurring.
These measures apply to all users, specifically for these types of queries.