YouTube introduced some new filters to its advanced search tools today. Possibly the most exciting change is that Shorts are now listed as a content type, so the three-minute-or-less videos can be excluded as results in your searches.
This is a welcome update for any of us who have been on the hunt for a long-form explainer only to wade through dozens of ten-second clips before finding anything close to our goal. Especially with the addition of even more AI slop last year thanks to the Google Veo 3 engine, an option to exclude Shorts may look even more appealing.
The other updates include a pair of renamed features within advanced search. The “Sort By” menu will now be called “Prioritize.” Likewise, the “View Count” option has been renamed to “Popularity;” this will allow YouTube’s algorithms to account for other metrics such as watch time to gauge how much other users are engaging with a particular video. A pair of former filter options have also been removed; there will no longer be choices to search for “Upload Date – Last Hour” and “Sort by Rating.”
