YouTube is ditching Trending to get niche with Charts

YouTube is ditching its Trending page to expand Charts into more specific categories.

Set to be removed “in the next couple of weeks,” YouTube’s Trending list and Trending Now page will be replaced with more niche lists on YouTube Charts, according to a company blog post.

YouTube currently has daily and weekly charts for trending music videos and artists, songs on YouTube Shorts, film trailers, and podcasts. The company said the shift to additional charts was due to reduced traffic to the Trending page and the development of specific fandoms and “more micro-trends enjoyed by diverse communities than ever before.”

“Back when we first launched the Trending page in 2015, the answer to ‘what’s trending?’ was a lot simpler to capture with a singular list of viral videos that everyone was talking about,” YouTube’s post reads.

“Viewers increasingly learn about trends in different places across YouTube – from recommendations and search suggestions to Shorts, comments and Communities. With these shifts, we’ve seen visits to the Trending page decrease significantly, especially over the last five years.”

YouTube noted it would both show popular content in charts and show personalised, algorithm-based recommendations to users, pointing to the platform’s Explore menu for people looking for non-personalised content. Custom recommendations drive YouTube’s future strategy, with the company injecting more and more AI tools into search.