Google today announced a slew of improvements to the way video recommendations are presented on YouTube. Acknowledging that no one knows a user's tastes better than the user, YouTube is implementing some changes that give users more control over what videos are shown in the Homepage and the Up Next section in video pages.
The most interesting of these enhancements is the ability to remove specific channels from the recommendations altogether. This way, if you're interested in a certain topic, but don't care for a particular channel about that topic, you won't have to see it anymore. This capability is available starting today on iOS and Android, and it's coming to the desktop experience later.
When you get video suggestions from a new channel, YouTube will also now tell you why that video is being recommended. For example, a channel may be recommended to you because other users who follow the channels you follow also follow that one. This feature is now available on iOS, with Android and desktop support coming soon.
Finally, you can now tailor the recommended videos page by showing only specific topics that YouTube has determined you're interested in. At the top of the Homepage and the Next Up section under a video, you'll see a list of topics based on your interests, and you can individually select one of those topics so that the recommended videos are only directly related to that topic. This feature will debut on the YouTube app for Android for English users, and support for iOS, desktop, and other languages is coming soon.
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