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YouTube closes trending page after a decade of operation

Platform shifts focus to category-specific charts as viewing patterns change significantly since 2015 launch.

Luis Rijo

• 7 min read
YouTube Charts
YouTube Charts

YouTube announced the closure of its trending page on July 11, 2025, with removal scheduled for July 21, 2025, marking the end of a decade-long feature that once served as the platform's primary discovery mechanism for viral content. The decision reflects fundamental changes in how audiences discover trending content across the video platform's ecosystem.

According to YouTube's community announcement, "When we launched the 'Trending' page in 2015, it was much easier to answer the question 'What are the latest trends?' by offering a single list of viral videos everyone was talking about." The platform emphasized that today's trends consist of numerous videos created by different fan communities, with more micro-trends appreciated by diverse communities than ever before.

The trending page experienced significant decline in usage, particularly over the past five years. Viewers increasingly discover trending content through recommendations, search suggestions, Shorts, comments, and community posts rather than dedicated trending lists. This shift prompted YouTube to fundamentally reconsider how it presents trending content to its billions of users.

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Summary

Who: YouTube users, content creators, digital marketing professionals, and advertising agencies utilizing the platform for content discovery and campaign planning.

What: YouTube's closure of its trending page feature, replacing it with category-specific charts through YouTube Charts, affecting how users discover viral and popular content across the platform.

When: Announced July 11, 2025, with trending page removal scheduled for July 21, 2025, following a decade of operation since the feature's 2015 launch.

Where: Global implementation across all YouTube markets, affecting the main YouTube platform, YouTube Charts, and related discovery mechanisms including Explore pages and recommendation algorithms.

Why: Significant decline in trending page usage over five years, fundamental changes in content discovery patterns toward personalized recommendations and category-specific exploration, and the platform's strategic shift toward enhanced creator monetization and content quality standards.

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The trending page operated through complex algorithmic systems that updated approximately every 15 minutes. According to YouTube's Help Center documentation, trending aimed to surface videos appealing to wide audiences while avoiding misleading, clickbait, or sensational content.

The algorithm considered multiple signals beyond simple view counts. Video "temperature" measured how quickly content generated views, while the system analyzed view sources including traffic from outside YouTube. Video age and performance compared to other recent uploads from the same channel factored into trending calculations.

YouTube maintained strict content safety filters to prevent videos containing excessive profanity, mature content, or violence from appearing on trending lists. In the United States and other major markets, human staff provided final filtering to ensure safety and appropriateness standards.

The platform explicitly stated it never accepted payment for trending placement and didn't favor specific creators. Views from YouTube advertisements were excluded from trending calculations. In major markets, YouTube ensured at least half of trending videos came from creators primarily focused on YouTube content creation.

Privacy settings affected trending eligibility, with only public videos qualifying for inclusion. Restricted Mode could hide certain videos from trending pages when activated by users seeking filtered content experiences.

YouTube will transition from its single trending list to category-specific rankings through YouTube Charts. Currently available rankings include trending music videos, weekly podcast charts, and popular movie trailers. The platform confirmed plans to add additional content categories to these rankings in the future.

The gaming video exploration page will remain as the primary space for discovering trending gaming content. This preservation indicates YouTube's recognition of gaming content's unique discovery patterns and audience behaviors.

YouTube Charts will serve as the central hub for tracking popular content across different categories. The platform's data shows that BLACKPINK's "뛰어(JUMP)" M/V topped trending music videos as of July 10, 2025, while various international artists including Bad Bunny, Drake, and YoungBoy Never Broke Again populated the remaining top positions.

The platform will emphasize personalized video recommendations to help audiences discover content aligned with their interests. YouTube stated this approach allows them to "present a larger number of popular and relevant content, and viewers discover new videos more naturally."

Non-personalized content browsing remains available through the Explore menu, creator channels, and subscription feeds. This structure maintains options for users seeking to discover content outside their typical viewing patterns.

YouTube Studio's Inspiration tab will continue providing creators with personalized ideas for viral content development. The feature analyzes individual channel performance patterns to suggest content strategies tailored to specific audiences.

Global reach with localized considerations

Trending displayed identical video lists to all viewers within the same country, explaining why users often encountered content in languages different from their browser settings. India represented a notable exception, with trending lists customized for nine common Indic languages to better serve the market's linguistic diversity.

Popular Shorts received special treatment in certain countries through dedicated shelves or tabs within trending pages. The feature also highlighted trending Shorts within user feeds and pivot pages, recognizing the format's growing importance in content discovery patterns.

This non-personalized approach distinguished trending from YouTube's recommendation algorithms, which adapt to individual viewing histories and preferences. The uniform presentation ensured trending reflected genuine viral content rather than personalized suggestions.

Personalized recommendations expand discovery options

The trending page closure carries significant implications for digital marketing professionals who previously relied on trending content for campaign planning and influencer partnerships. YouTube's broader advertising ecosystem has undergone substantial changes throughout 2025, with Google introducing AI-powered campaign optimization and expanded video advertising capabilities across its network.

Marketing teams utilizing YouTube for brand awareness campaigns must adapt their content discovery strategies. The shift from centralized trending lists to category-specific charts requires more targeted monitoring across multiple ranking systems. Brands seeking to identify emerging trends will need to monitor several YouTube Charts categories simultaneously rather than relying on a single trending page.

Video advertising campaigns have already experienced significant structural changes in 2025. Google's transition from YouTube Video Action campaigns to Demand Gen formats reflects the platform's evolution toward multi-format advertising across its expanded network of properties including Discover, Gmail, and the Google Display Network.

The timing coincides with YouTube's enhanced focus on creator monetization and content quality. Recent policy updates implemented July 15, 2025, strengthen detection systems for mass-produced and repetitious content, indicating the platform's commitment to authentic creator partnerships that support premium brand safety environments.

Marketing implications extend beyond discovery

YouTube continues developing features to promote emerging creators through its Hype program, which allows viewers to highlight recent videos they appreciate. This mechanism provides an alternative pathway for content discovery outside traditional trending metrics.

The platform maintains promotion of notable creators through official @YouTube social media accounts and its primary YouTube channel, ensuring millions of viewers can discover new talent. YouTube Music's Artiste à découvrir program will receive dedicated placement on the platform's Explore page.

These creator support initiatives align with YouTube's broader strategy of maintaining creator-centric growth while adapting to changing content consumption patterns. Creator monetization has expanded significantly, with more than 50% of channels earning five figures or more generating revenue from sources beyond traditional advertising.

Connected TV viewing drives strategic changes

YouTube's trending page closure occurs amid the platform's substantial growth in connected TV consumption. Nielsen data confirms YouTube maintained its position as the number one streaming platform by watch time on TV screens for 17 consecutive months through Q2 2024.

Connected TV viewership has increased more than 130% over the past three years, fundamentally altering how audiences consume video content. This shift toward lean-back viewing experiences influences trending content discovery patterns, as viewers rely more heavily on algorithmic recommendations than active browsing.

The television-centric consumption pattern supports YouTube's strategy of category-specific content organization. Viewers consuming content on connected TV devices typically seek specific entertainment categories rather than exploring general trending lists designed for mobile or desktop browsing.

Advertising capabilities have expanded to accommodate this viewing behavior change. YouTube Select and YouTube TV now support 30- and 60-second non-skippable advertisements, providing brands with storytelling formats similar to traditional television advertising.

Technical implementation affects measurement

The trending page elimination impacts how marketing professionals measure content performance and competitive analysis. Historical trending data will no longer provide comprehensive benchmarks for viral content success across all categories simultaneously.

YouTube Charts categories offer more granular measurement capabilities but require separate tracking across multiple ranking systems. Marketing teams must adapt their performance monitoring tools to aggregate data from music video charts, movie trailer rankings, and potential future category additions.

Platform measurement capabilities continue evolving through Display & Video 360 updates scheduled for Q3 2025. These changes include modifications to YouTube-specific reporting structures and audience dimensions, reflecting the platform's ongoing technical transformation.

Third-party social media monitoring tools that previously scraped trending page data must reconfigure their systems to capture category-specific chart information. This technical adjustment period may temporarily affect trending content analysis for brands and agencies relying on automated monitoring systems.

Industry response and adaptation strategies

Digital marketing agencies must restructure their YouTube monitoring and campaign planning processes to accommodate the trending page closure. Category-specific tracking requires more sophisticated tools and analysis methodologies than the previous single-list approach.

Influencer marketing strategies need adjustment to identify emerging creators across different content categories. The elimination of a unified trending list makes it more challenging to spot creators experiencing rapid growth across multiple content types simultaneously.

Brand safety considerations may improve through category-specific organization, as advertisers can more precisely target content environments aligned with their campaigns. The structured approach reduces risk of brand adjacency to inappropriate trending content that might appear in general viral content lists.

Social media management teams should establish monitoring processes across multiple YouTube Charts categories relevant to their brands. This distributed tracking approach ensures comprehensive trending content awareness while maintaining focus on brand-appropriate content categories.

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