Have you spent time curating YouTube playlists, only to find they don’t show up or appear when you search for them? It can be frustrating when your hard work creating custom video playlists goes unseen.Â
However, there are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot this issue and boost the visibility of your YouTube playlists.
How to Troubleshoot Issue and Fix YouTube Saved Playlists No Longer Appear or Not Showing Up in Search Results Glitch
Check Your Playlist Privacy Settings
The first thing to check is your playlist privacy settings. When you create a playlist of videos on YouTube, you have three options:
- Public – anyone can view the playlist
- Unlisted – anyone with the link can view the playlist
- Private – only you can view the playlist
Playlists set to “Private” will not show up in YouTube search results or be viewable to the public. Be sure your playlist visibility is set to “Public” if you want it searchable.
You can edit a playlist’s privacy settings at any time. Simply go to the playlist, click the down arrow next to the title, and select “Edit playlist.” From here you can change the privacy setting. Setting your playlists to “Public” is an easy first step to troubleshoot search visibility.
Be Patient – Indexing Can Take Time
Next, it’s important to be patient. YouTube does not re-index content instantly – it can sometimes take a few days for playlists to become searchable after you create or edit them.
Think of YouTube’s search index like a library catalogue – the librarians need time to catalogue each new book before it shows up in the system. Give your playlist a few days after you make changes to be indexed and added to search results. Rushing to conclusions will only cause unnecessary worry.
Continue promoting your playlist through shares and links during this waiting period. The more activity on a playlist, the quicker it will likely be picked up by YouTube’s search algorithms. Patience paired with promotion is key.
Check for YouTube Site Issues
Sometimes site-wide technical issues on YouTube can cause playlists to disappear from search. Check YouTube’s official status site to see if they are reporting any known problems related to search and discovery.Â
Status messages like “We’re aware that some videos are missing from search results” indicate a temporary technical glitch. As frustrating as it is, the only solution is to wait for YouTube engineers to correct these problems on their end.
Bookmark the status site and check it whenever you notice odd issues like missing playlists. This can help you identify whether the problem is isolated or a larger systemic issue.
Optimize Playlists for Search
Double check that you have properly optimized your playlists for discoverability. Follow these YouTube SEO (search engine optimization) best practices:
- Descriptive titles: Make sure your playlist title clearly explains the theme or purpose of the playlist. Include relevant keywords.
- Custom descriptions: Write a description that gives viewers more context about the videos in the playlist. Include keywords and phrases you want it to rank for.
- Tags: Add relevant tag words to your playlist to help surface it in searches related to those keywords. Separate tags with commas.
- Thumbnails: Create custom thumbnails that represent the playlist content rather than using auto-generated ones.
Take time to optimize not only the title, but also the surrounding metadata of your playlists. This gives YouTube more signals about the topic and purpose of each playlist when indexing.
Allow Time for Indexing After Making Changes
When you update and optimize the title, description, tags, thumbnail, or any other metadata of an existing playlist, remember that YouTube needs to re-index the playlist to recognize those changes.Â
Give your playlists a few days after making optimizations and changes for the updates to be reflected in search results. Don’t constantly tweak and change minor details – make larger changes simultaneously, then wait patiently for indexing.
You can continue sharing your playlist during this period to help drive external signals of popularity and authority as YouTube’s algorithms recrawl the page.
Reach Out to YouTube Support
If you’ve triple checked your settings, allowed sufficient time to index, confirmed there are no site issues, and optimized thoroughly for search, but your playlists still don’t appear, it may be time to reach out to the YouTube Help Community forum.
Describe your exact issue, steps taken to troubleshoot, and provide examples of playlists not showing up. The community or official YouTube support members can then look into whether there is anything wrong on YouTube’s end preventing your playlists from being indexed properly.
Keep in mind that YouTube receives millions of such requests, so a timely response is not guaranteed. However, for persistent indexing issues not resolved by other troubleshooting, it is worth asking YouTube to investigate directly.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.
