YouTube says its desktop homepage redesign, which features larger thumbnails, drove much attraction and engagement astir long-form videos, contempt displaying less videos astatine once.
Todd Beaupré, Senior Director of Growth and Discovery astatine YouTube, shared the consequence successful a Creator Insider interview pinch YouTube Creator Liaison René Ritchie. The 2 besides did the algorithm question and reply I covered successful January 2025. The consequence answers a interest creators had raised astir the layout, that showing less long-form thumbnails could mean little long-form viewing.
What Beaupré Said
Ritchie brought up the layout alteration because creators kept asking if the bigger thumbnails affected recommendations. Beaupré mentioned he’d heard astir this interest too, but it didn’t play retired that way:
“This alteration is astir apt now coming up connected a mates years. It really drove much attraction and engagement astir long-form.”
YouTube had the aforesaid interest earlier making the alteration and ran galore experiments first. “We wouldn’t person launched that alteration if it reduced viewership,” he explained. The layout, he added, “helped turn long-form and short-form” and seems to beryllium making it easier for viewers to determine what to watch.
Why YouTube Says Fewer Choices Worked
Beaupré connected the long-form summation to a shape that YouTube has observed many times during testing. The institution utilized to judge that expanding density was the key, for illustration showing viewers arsenic galore videos arsenic imaginable truthful they’d yet find thing they liked.
“Sometimes prime is overwhelming and they conscionable don’t take anything,” he explained. He described this penetration arsenic “often little is more” and mentioned that YouTube utilized to show overmuch smaller thumbnails connected mobile devices, operating nether the aforesaid presumption astir density.
This position comes from YouTube’s ain experiments. However, the question and reply didn’t see circumstantial information from those tests, specified arsenic the standard of the changes aliases the timeframes involved.
Where The Redesign Stands
YouTube’s October 2024 level update mentioned larger thumbnails and bigger text, among much than 2 twelve improvements. The station tied them to scenery browsing connected mobile and didn’t picture the sparse desktop grid. Reports of a desktop homepage pinch 2 aliases 3 oversized cards per statement spell backmost to astatine slightest 2024, and they dispersed successful April 2025, erstwhile Android Authority described the layout arsenic a trial pinch nary connection connected a wider rollout.
Beaupré’s remark astir it being “coming up connected a mates years” aligns pinch that timing, and his “rolled that out” puts YouTube connected grounds that the layout launched. This update is abstracted from the 2019 desktop redesign that besides accrued thumbnail sizes.
Why This Matters
YouTube’s research results thief explicate why it decided to trim the number of videos shown connected the desktop homepage, moreover erstwhile creators had concerns. According to those tests, long-form did amended pinch fewer, larger thumbnails.
YouTube is describing the homepage arsenic a whole, not really a bigger thumbnail mightiness effect a azygous video. The question and reply didn’t mention really this alteration affected individual creators’ homepage impressions. Overall, YouTube says it saw much attraction and engagement pinch long-form videos.
Looking Ahead
Beaupré mentioned that YouTube runs hundreds of experiments astatine immoderate fixed time, and Ritchie said a homepage alteration that group spot and station astir connected societal media is often conscionable a mini test. For example, 1 personification mightiness spot a different layout than different without immoderate charismatic announcement. Sometimes, a desktop homepage that looks different this week is 1 of those mini experiments alternatively than a rollout.
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