YouTube on mobile expanding its somewhat crowded-looking hyperlinked comments test

YouTube is now rolling out its hyperlinked comments test more widely in video comment sections. It's a way to help find you more about a specific topic or interest, although to some, it may be somewhat of a spammy approach.

In the beginning, the feature that allows hyperlinked comments was rolled out as a limited experiment. The small trial run was launched back in 2023, but now it seems the feature is expanding to more people.

It works rather straightforwardly: if someone posts a comment and there are lots of relevant topics or info on YouTube about it, you'll see a blue hyperlink with a small eyeglass icon, indicating that the word or phrase is clickable.

The option is said to be a way to "reduce friction" when trying to learn about a new subject or content, according to YouTube. When you click on one of these, you will be taken to a new page while the mini-player remains so you can continue watching the video.


Right now, it seems that multiple words or phrases in a comment can become hyperlinked. It's not clear at the moment what the criteria are before a word or phrase gets converted into a hyperlink, and it seems rather random at this point.

Unfortunately, though, the implementation of the feature isn't ideal at this moment. It has the potential to make a video comment section look spammy and annoying with blue hyperlinks all over the place. And it can also look crowded and not seamless or pleasant to look at.

Right now, the change has only been spotted on YouTube mobile, and it's currently in testing (not officially launched to everyone just yet). It is not clear when the change will be officially introduced, but I can imagine some people would not be as happy about it as others.

If I was going to implement such a feature, I'd make sure at least a number of hyperlinked phrases or words isn't surpassed, so the comment section won't look like a spammy promo place.