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To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

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Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#151

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

slig wrote: post #7

YouTube's search is horrible. No, I don't want "related results" that are completely unrelated to my query, neither results from my country when I specifically type in English and my whole UI is in English and I never watch non-English content while logged in.

There is a way to avoid "related results". Search from the command line using a simpler HTTP client to retrieve the first batch of results and use the public API to retrieve subsequent results as JSON into a results file. Using this method I can retrieve the full number of possible results, e.g., hundreds or thousands, not simply the first batch, e.g., 15, 25 or whatever. I call this "continuation" searching. No Javascript is required.

When people use highly complex graphical browsers and Javascript to make these requests it is sometimes triggered by a "button" at the bottom of a page called "more results" or something similar. Alternatively the requests may be triggered automatically when down scrolling, producing what some people call an "inifinite scroll" effect. Javascript is usually what produces the annoyances people experience. It is also used for tracking and telemetry.

The token for the public API to retrieve the next batch of results is the results file. Using a simpler HTTP client, I can (a) search YouTube very quickly and comprehensively entirely from the command line, (b) download videos without ever visiting a YouTube page in a graphical browser and being exposed to annoyances, tracking and telemetry (c) switch from retrieving via search string to retrieving via channel name, (d) mix the search and channel results into a single results file, (e) output a TSV table from the results file. Currently I include the following fields in the TSV table:

YouTubeID Title ChannelName Duration SearchString/ChannelPath Search/Channel

The last field is just an indicator of whether the result is from a search or a channel.

Videos are browsed and selected using a TSV table instead of an HTML search results page.^1 Because I am interested in videos of a certain duration, including "unpopular" videos with low view counts, I have found this is an optimal search method. No distractions. YouTube wants people to view popular, low quality, "viral" videos, e.g., "fake news", extremism and the like, because this "content" is optimal for their advertising business model. Hence automatic "recommendations". This is what makes YouTube search so horrible. Advertising as a "business model" for websites can influence design and have very harmful downstream effects.

1. The HTML pages for videos are where the "recommendations" come from. Thus I never see the recommendations as they are not part of this search/retrieval method. I could extract them from the HTML into a table if I wanted to see them, but I choose not to. I only extract the video download URLs from the pages for the videos.

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#152

Post by Akronymus »

doliveira wrote: post #16
bdowling wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube’s search is carefully optimized to keep viewers watching video after video, and ad after ad, for as long as possible. That’s why the search returns popular videos, ones that suck in viewers, rather than ones that match your search terms.

I'm actually finding myself watching YouTube less and less because of this. If we were to anthropomorphize the AI, I'd say it's trying pretty desperately to bring me to a "popular cluster".

I mainly use youtube for my music playlist. Where I add songs after someone points me to it and I like it.

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#153

Post by Akronymus »

hwers wrote: post #90
post_break wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't remove a channel from search unfortunately.

I don’t even think it blocks the channel long term from your recommendations. I’m pretty sure they’ve tried to sneak in an old channel I’ve explicitly said not to recommend again in my recommendations via whatever multi armed bandit with noise algo they’re running.

I ended up adding more and more ublock origin block entries for each channel I REALLY want to avoid.

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#155

Post by Akronymus »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #13
thomassmith65 wrote: post #3

If I had a magic wand, I'd create a non-profit, funded by the world's governments, to host the bulk of the world's videos. Wojcicki's Youtube doesn't care if when a user browses the site, it's like wading through a sea of garbage, as long as the user browses for as many hours as possible.

Browsing YouTube without an AdBlocker and cosmetic filters that hide emblems and badges on the video player is truly shocking. I really sense the goal of YouTube isn’t to get you to watch something, it’s to get you to watch something else - at all times. I’ve seen it recommend related videos as soon as the video starts playing. It will recommend videos as soon as you click pause. There will be little interstitial rec…

But hey, they removed those in video notes that were actually useful a lot of the times. Or community closed captioning. Or being able to disable that fucking miniplayer when you are in a playlist and navigate somewhere else. I have multiple tabs for a reason FFS.

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#156

Post by Akronymus »

ttymck wrote: post #55
throwawaygog6 wrote: post #54

While we are here, is there a service that provides me with list of newly uploaded youtube videos? In my mother tongue (south indian language), I have many interesting channels but youtube does not surface them by default. I just want to go through the list and write an algorithm to filter them out based on mypreferences. Is there somebody who scrapes them youtube and sells the data

Does the subscribe feature do what you are looking for?

Subscribing doesn't show all videos, but only those that youtube thinks you may be interested in. If I get overwhelmed with content I can unsub to channels I no longer watch. Instead some sit in my subs list for years with regular uploads and never showing up in my sub list.

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#157

Post by samb1729 »

jsemrau wrote: post #75
samb1729 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please disclose the fact that finclout is a product you are invested in when advertising it on here.

The irony is that this is exactly the problem of current social media. Everyone can comment on everything in any way they like and there is no way to validate their affiliations, intentions, or sponsorships on scale.

A blockchain won’t magically fix that

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#158

Post by Veen »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #151
slig wrote: post #7

YouTube's search is horrible. No, I don't want "related results" that are completely unrelated to my query, neither results from my country when I specifically type in English and my whole UI is in English and I never watch non-English content while logged in.

There is a way to avoid "related results". Search from the command line using a simpler HTTP client to retrieve the first batch of results and use the public API to retrieve subsequent results as JSON into a results file. Using this method I can retrieve the full number of possible results, e.g., hundreds or thousands, not simply the first batch, e.g., 15, 25 or whatever. I call this "continuation" searching. No Java…

We have a different understanding of the phrase “very easy”.

Re: To improve search results on YouTube, use the search prefix “intitle:”

#160

Post by 8organicbits »

beebeepka wrote: post #147
synaesthesisx wrote: post #139

To improve search results on Google, append site:reddit.com to your query :)

What good would that be if I am not interested in visiting that site? What an odd suggestion

The point is to force Google towards a site you expect may have the result you want. site:news.ycombinator.com works for similar reasons.

Basically, you can find (likely organic) discussion of topics by groups who are familiar with the subject and are likely to quickly correct any incorrect or misleading statements.

Otherwise, Google will believe that some no-name site with generated content is... somehow... a good search result. The 'reddit' approach works poorly for me recently, Google gets stuck in certain sub-reddits and there's a lot of low quality or bot content on reddit to filter out anyway.

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