Numerous algorithms and improvements have been proposed for the purpose of performing spectral dimensionality reduction, yet there is still no gold standard technique.

Those wishing to use spectral dimensionality reduction without prior knowledge of the field will immediately be confronted with questions that need answering: What parameter values to use? How many dimensions should the data be embedded into? How are new data points incorporated? What about large-scale data? For many, a search of the literature to find answers to these questions is impractical, as such, there is a need for a concise discussion into the problems themselves, how they affect spectral dimensionality reduction, and how these problems can be overcome.