TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms, especially among Gen Z users. The app makes it easy to create and share short videos. But many users have noticed that searching for specific videos and sounds on TikTok can be frustratingly difficult compared to other platforms like YouTube or Instagram.
There are a few key reasons why searching on TikTok poses challenges:
Limited Search Functionality
The built-in search tool on TikTok is fairly basic and lacks some of the advanced filtering, sorting, and query options available on other sites. There are no filters to narrow results by video length, upload date, number of likes/views, etc. You can’t sort results chronologically or by relevance. There is no autocomplete or search predictions as you type. And TikTok doesn’t use keyword density or return videos matching your full search phrase – it mostly looks for tags and titles.
Without robust search filters and settings, it’s hard to fine tune searches and find precisely what you want. The basic keyword search makes it difficult to get relevant results or search for niche topics and keywords compared to a site like YouTube.
Limitations of Hashtags
TikTok relies heavily on hashtags for discoverability. But hashtags have limitations for search purposes. Too-broad hashtags like #funny or #dance generate millions of results. But niche hashtags may only have a handful of posts. Typos and multiple hashtag formats (#Funny vs #funny) also split search results. And many users don’t hashtag thoroughly or strategically to optimize searchability.
TikTok does not allow boolean search syntax like “this AND that”, further limiting how narrowly hashtags can be used. Some banned hashtags like #coronavirus also prevent results from appearing. So hashtag dependence significantly hinders searching capabilities on TikTok.
Lack of Descriptive Titles and Metadata
TikTok videos often have vague or clickbait titles like “Watch this!” or “You won’t believe it!”. Video descriptions are not common. So there is very little meaningful metadata for TikTok’s search algorithm to index besides hashtags. This makes it hard to find specific videos based on title, description, etc. compared to YouTube which has robust titles, descriptions and closed captioning.
Without descriptive titles and metadata, TikTok searches rely much more heavily on viewing your video content to recommend and surface relevant results. This makes it harder to find videos without watching them first.
Emphasis on Virality Over Searchability
TikTok’s algorithm is optimized to show you highly viral videos from broad categories like comedy, dance, pets, etc. Users simply scroll a personalized For You feed. But this comes at the expense of search. TikTok cares more about showing you engaging videos than precisely matching search queries. So you may see popular viral videos with a hashtag rather than newest or most relevant results.
This algorithmic focus on virality and engagement reduces how customizable and precise searches can be. TikTok is designed for entertainment over searchability.
Closed-Loop Recommendations
The TikTok algorithm gets to know you based on your likes, shares, comments, etc. As a result, it shows you more of what you already like and interact with. This closed loop tends to keep recommending you similar content, making it tough to break out and discover new topics to search for.
Since TikTok focuses recommendations on your existing interests, searches outside of those categories are less likely to produce relevant results tailored just for you. The personalized algorithm that makes TikTok addictive also isolates you from content, topics and sounds outside of your wheelhouse.
Young User Base
Over 60% of TikTok users are teenagers and young adults. Young generations tend to be more used to exploring via recommendations than proactively searching. So TikTok focuses its algorithm more on discoverability than robust search.
Younger users often aren’t as deliberate and specific when searching on TikTok. They expect TikTok to show them entertaining videos, not to hunt for specific content. TikTok designs its features and experience around the behaviors of its young demographic who search less.
RapidVolumeof New Content
Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to TikTok every minute. New content goes viral daily. This enormous volume and velocity of changing content makes it hard for TikTok’s search algorithms to keep up and surface new and relevant niche content before it’s buried under more videos.
Even if you search for a sound or hashtag that was trending yesterday, the rapid pace of new uploads on TikTok means results will quickly become irrelevant. The perpetually viral nature of new TikTok content makes it difficult for search to stay current.
Short Videos Are Hard to Index
Most TikTok videos are less than 60 seconds. Short form content offers less for TikTok’s algorithms and AI search tools to analyze compared to longer YouTube videos. Less video content means fewer visual cues, metadata tags, contextual clues, and text for enabling strong search results.
It’s simply harder for TikTok to index billions of short videos and understand their meaning for relevance to search queries. Short entertainment clips don’t lend themselves well to search compared to informative long-form video.
Lack of Audio Indexing
TikTok has no ability to index or search the audio content within videos themselves. Unlike YouTube which transcribes audio to text for search, TikTok can’t listen to videos. Users have to find sounds through hashtags or directly on other videos.
Without audio indexing, TikTok misses a huge opportunity to improve searchability by matching spoken words and lyrics within millions of videos against search queries.
Moderation and Copyright Issues
To avoid problems with moderation and copyright, TikTok sometimes proactively blocks certain hashtags and sounds. Restricting access to trending memes, songs, or topics understandably frustrates users who want to search for them but can’t.
Banned tags and blocked content like copyrighted music make searches fail despite a topic’s popularity. Overzealous moderation hinders searches and causes confusion when users don’t understand why certain queries return no results.
China-Centric Features and Algorithms
TikTok originated as the Chinese app Douyin before expanding abroad. Much of TikTok’s product design and algorithmic optimization still stems from choices tailored to Chinese users and censorship policy. Globally popular topics like politics get little promotion.
TikTok’s China-oriented history shaped its features and systems in ways less optimal for searchability in the Western markets it expanded into. Algorithms aren’t trained as well for non-Chinese languages, content and culture.
No Web Search Optimization
YouTube has robust SEO to rank videos in Google web search results. TikTok was designed as a mobile app without web search optimization. So TikTok videos essentially disappear from search outside the walled garden of the app itself.
This makes any external search discovery of TikTok content nearly impossible. You have to already be on TikTok to find what you’re looking for. TikTok’s lack of web search presence and SEO is a huge driver behind its weak search capabilities.
No Search Intent Data from Users
Google and YouTube can analyze what people search for and click on in results to improve relevance. TikTok lacks this feedback loop of search intent data given its lack of a search bar to enter explicit queries.
With no direct way to capture user search intent through queries, TikTok has less signal to develop its search algorithms and understand exactly what people are looking for and failing to find.
Summary
In summary, TikTok’s limited native search tools, focus on virality over searchability, short video formats, lack of audio indexing, and missing SEO all contribute to a frustrating user experience when trying to find specific content compared to more robust search on platforms like YouTube and Google.
TikTok cares more about showing you a personalized feed of engaging videos than matching niche queries. The app’s young demographics means search is less of a priority compared to older users on other sites. And TikTok’s China-centric roots shaped its systems in ways unoptimized for search in Western markets.
While TikTok’s recommendations help you discover entertaining content, its algorithms just aren’t designed or trained for the precise searching available on platforms built to index and retrieve specific text, video and audio content from the start.
Hopefully as TikTok’s popularity increases, consumer demand will push the company to invest more in improving search capabilities within the app. But for now, searching on TikTok remains a huge pain point for users trying to find specific videos, sounds and hashtags on the platform.
