Company names (such as Yahoo!), utilities and formats (email, MP3), and general terms (movies, downloads, football) are filtered out by the editors of the Yahoo! Buzz Index.

The editors' goal is to list subjects that are interesting to the broadest possible audience. To this end, terms related to adults-only content are also excluded.

In some cases, the editors might also exclude terms that they believe have been elevated by similarity to unrelated popular terms. For example, the movie The Rock might be excluded if the buzz was determined to be solely generated by interest in the WWF star, The Rock.