Google seeks to deprioritize certain videos on YouTube Shorts

Google has a plan to make the short-form videos that hit your feed on YouTube Shorts offer more value to you. To do that, Google is revising its recommendation systems to prioritize original content while reducing the reach of content re-uploaded from other creators that hasn't been improved with additional content.

Google uses things like a user's watch history to determine which YouTube Shorts are recommended

To determine which YouTube videos a user sees as recommendations, Google says it evaluates billions of signals and looks at things like a user's watch history and topic interests to deliver the best experience to YouTube viewers.

Google's goal is to reduce distribution of short-form videos that "steal" content without adding anything new

Not only will this move to focus on original videos improve the content on YouTube Shorts, it will also help those creators posting original content succeed as they grow larger. Google points out that deprioritizing re-uploaded material and prioritizing original content is in line with the policies put in place by the Alphabet subsidiary. If you're a creator, Google's blog points out that certain channels will be facing less distribution. This would hit the most important thing in a creator's life-their wallet.

The accounts being targeted by Google are considered to be mostly sharing videos made by other creators, usually focused on a specific theme or topic, without having any significant changes.

YouTube Shorts showing prank phone calls are a good example of the content Google wants to deprioritize

You might see many prank phone calls in your YouTube feeds that are copies of original content originally produced by Seattle radio station MOViN 92.5. These calls, and the real-time videos that capture the original calls, were made by the station's morning team of Brooke and Jubal, later renamed Brooke and Jeffrey when Jubal left the station.

Even though an aggregating YouTube Shorts channel might try to add the words of a prank call (aka a "Phone Tap") or show a driving scene while the audio from the call is playing, Google does not consider these to be significant changes, and distribution of such videos will be reduced.


"Creative formats are a vibrant part of YouTube," says Google. Instead of making small technical edits to a video, or changing the template of a video just to make any kind of change.

Google suggests that creators become story tellers and use their voices to add their own point of view

Google suggests bringing your own voice to the content you want to share. One way to do that is to think of yourself as a storyteller, giving the YouTube Shorts audience your own point of view.

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