YouTube Will Not Recommend Videos From Today If The Watch History Is Off

Google is making changes to YouTube which will stop showing personalized recommendations if you have your watch history has been turned off. As per Google, this is because the recommendations are based on your watch history.

YouTube has recently implemented a policy where recommended videos will not be shown on specific sections of their platform, including the homepage if your watch history is disabled.

The upcoming change on YouTube will result in a simplified homepage, featuring only the search bar at the top and the navigation menu on the side. This change will be implemented on both mobile devices and the web.

Here's what YouTube mentioned in their 'New Feature and Updates' thread:

[AUGUST 8, 2023] A new viewer experience that better corresponds to your YouTube watch history preferences

One of the benefits of having YouTube watch history on is that it enables YouTube to provide video recommendations you may be interested in; however, we know some prefer to clear and turn off your YouTube watch history. Starting today, we’re changing how you see recommendations on YouTube, based on your Watch History settings:

Starting today, if you have YouTube watch history off and have no significant prior watch history, features that require watch history to provide video recommendations will be disabled – like your YouTube home feed. This means that starting today, your home feed may look a lot different: you’ll be able to see the search bar and the left-hand guide menu, with no feed of recommended videos thus allowing you to more easily search, browse subscribed channels and explore Topic tabs instead.

We’re rolling these changes out slowly, over the next few months. We are launching this new experience to make it more clear which YouTube features rely on watch history to provide video recommendations and make it more streamlined for those of you who prefer to search rather than browse recommendations. You can change your YouTube watch history settings at any time based on whether you prefer us to provide video recommendations or not.