YouTube's search function is atrocious now [video]

No, like, the search will sometimes deliberately insert a couple of videos from your watch history in a section labeled "Previously watched". It's not just that it's surfacing previously seen videos which match the search; it's surfacing videos from your viewing history instead of videos which match your search.

So this doesn't even seem like an issue with search "quality" in a product sense -- it seems like something is actually deeply broken with YouTube search. This is a straight-up bug.

For those not watching the video, he's searching for "games that think more gameplay mechanics equals more fun" (not in quotes) which you can see the results of:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=games+that+thin...

He expects it to list his video with that title:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZKcZbi1rg

But that video... just isn't in the search results at all. I thought -- maybe it's an obscure video? Maybe the others are just way more popular? But no -- his video has 15 million views. While the search results have some homage or re-uploads with 575K, 1.4K, 739 views... so the fact that it's missing his original video means it's just broken. Yikes.

Note that it does finds the video as the #1 result if you search only within his channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ProZD/search?query=games%20that%20t...

But the point is, this isn't some kind of "product decision" affecting the ranking. This isn't about prioritizing money over niche content or something.

This is just an instance where YouTube search is just flat-out broken. There's a serious bug here -- the questions are, how widespread is it, and why isn't Google finding it and patching it before we figure it out? It seems like a serious problem with quality control.

You know what else bothers me. If I hover over a thumbnail for a video, that now counts as a view and gets added to my history. Clogging up my feed with more algorithmic horseshit I don't want to watch. I'm thinking of just using nebula because I mostly watch science videos and I'm tired of the algo inserting shit I'm not the least bit interested in.

Has anyone tried to make a Yahoo! Directory vision of YouTube/web video?

This isn’t going to get better on behalf of YT product teams, and Sora et al are going to ratchet up the stakes

That's not what they're referring to. It will show videos completely unrelated to your search query.

A few moments ago I searched for "Porter Robinson Ludwig" to continue watching a 2 hour stream where Porter Robinson guides Ludwig through making a beat. The 6th result in my search list is a video I've watched before, "Pro Players Play 50€ decks" from a Magic The Gathering channel. Nothing to do with Porter Robinson or Ludwig or music. It's just there's because I've watched it once before.

If I type in the search query of "games that think more gameplay mechanics equals more fun" after just a few videos, the videos in search switch to being completely unrelated and are labeled either "You might also like this", or "Previously Watched". Hilariously, "Porter Robinson (Teaches Ludwig How to Produce Music)" is video is #6. #7 is "Streamer Fakes Blindfold Speedrun for Clout". The video by ProZD with that exact title does not appear in the first 30 results, and that's when I quit counting.