| Keyword | Volume | CPC | Competition | 12-month trend |
|---|
How it works
The YouTube Keyword Tool harvests real autocomplete suggestions from YouTube's public suggest endpoint (the same engine that powers the dropdown in YouTube's search bar) for any seed term you enter. Suggestions reflect what real users have searched for on YouTube. We then enrich every harvested phrase with monthly Google search volume, CPC, competition, and a 12-month trend via the Keywords Everywhere API.
How the harvest works. The harvester runs in your browser via JSONP (calls go from your IP, not ours) and hits Google's suggest API with ds=yt + client=youtube for the YouTube-specific suggestion data. We iterate your seed combined with the alphabet (a-z, 0-9) plus ~70 modifier words spanning questions, comparisons, prepositions, buyer-intent qualifiers, tutorials, and how-to phrasing. For each prefix YouTube returns 0-10 suggestions; we collect every unique one. A typical 5-seed harvest produces 200-500+ keywords.
Volume enrichment. As keywords are harvested, batches of 100 are sent to the KE API for Google volume, CPC, competition, and 12-month trend. YouTube doesn't publish per-keyword search volume publicly, so we use Google's data as a relative-popularity proxy that correlates well with YouTube interest in practice.
Country targeting. The Country dropdown selects both YouTube's geo hint and the volume-lookup country. Volume + CPC numbers will be specific to that country's Google data. Your last-picked country persists across sessions.
Conservative pacing. The harvest is paced at roughly one request every 1.5 seconds to stay below YouTube's per-IP rate limit. A full 5-seed harvest takes ~15 minutes. You can stop early at any time and keep the keywords found so far.
Plan caps. On the Free plan you can run 500 keyword lookups per day across all our keyword tools combined.
What the columns mean
- Keyword
- The exact suggestion YouTube's autosuggest returned for some prefix of your seed term. Click the cross-link icon to open the keyword in SERP Checker for a live SERP audit.
- Volume
- Monthly Google search volume averaged over the past 12 months, sourced from Google Keyword Planner via the Keywords Everywhere API. YouTube doesn't publish per-keyword volume publicly; Google volume is used as a proxy that correlates with YouTube demand in practice.
- CPC
- Average cost-per-click that advertisers pay in Google Ads for that keyword, in the country's currency. Higher CPCs typically indicate commercial-intent keywords where competition for ads is fierce.
- Competition
- Google Ads' competition score (Low / Medium / High), reflecting how many advertisers bid on the keyword. A loose proxy for YouTube SEO difficulty: high ad competition usually correlates with high creator competition for views.
- 12-Month Trend
- Sparkline of monthly Google search volume over the past year. Useful for spotting seasonal patterns or rising/declining interest in a topic. Hover any point on the chart for the exact month-over-month value.
Frequently asked questions
What is the YouTube Keyword Tool?
It's a free, no-signup keyword-research tool that harvests real autocomplete suggestions from YouTube's public suggest API for any seed term you enter, then enriches every harvested phrase with monthly Google search volume, cost-per-click, competition, and a 12-month trend. The harvester runs in your browser (calls come from your IP), and the volume data is pulled from the Keywords Everywhere API.
How does YouTube autosuggest work for keyword research?
YouTube's suggest endpoint (the same engine that powers the dropdown when you type into the YouTube search bar) is exposed via Google's suggest API with ds=yt + client=youtube. Each prefix you type returns suggestions YouTube has seen real users search for. We iterate your seed term combined with a-z, 0-9, and ~70 modifier words (questions, comparisons, how-to phrasing, etc.), collecting every unique suggestion. The result is hundreds of long-tail video-search phrases.
Why do YouTube keywords differ from Google keywords?
YouTube users phrase their searches differently than Google users. They tend to type more conversational, action-oriented queries ("how to fix", "tutorial", "review", "vs"), and they search for entertainment, music, and walkthroughs more than for shopping or local information. A keyword that's popular on Google may have weak YouTube demand and vice versa. Running both the Google and YouTube tools on the same seed surfaces the gap between the two intents.
How do I find good keywords for a YouTube video?
Use the harvested keywords as ideas for video titles, descriptions, and tags. Look for phrases that combine three signals: meaningful Google search volume (which loosely tracks YouTube interest), low competition (Low badge), and natural conversational phrasing. Words like "how to", "vs", "review", "tutorial", "guide", and "best" are strong starting points. Once you pick a target keyword, weave it into your title, the first 100 characters of your description, and 3-5 of your tags.
Should I use these as YouTube tags?
Yes, with discretion. YouTube tags help YouTube understand what your video is about, but they're not a ranking signal in the way they were a decade ago. Pick 5-10 of the most-relevant harvested keywords as tags (don't stuff every long-tail variant in there). Prioritize the ones whose Google volume + conversational phrasing match the actual topic of your video. The single most important place to put your target keyword is still the video title.
Are the volume numbers actual YouTube search volume?
No, and that's an important honesty point. The volume column shows Google search volume for the harvested phrase (sourced from Google Keyword Planner via the Keywords Everywhere API). YouTube doesn't publish per-keyword search volume publicly. We use Google's data as a proxy because in practice the two correlate well: if "how to edit videos" gets searched a million times on Google, it gets searched plenty on YouTube too. Read it as a relative-popularity signal, not an absolute YouTube view count.
Why does the harvest take ~15 minutes?
To be a good citizen of YouTube's suggest API we space requests out conservatively (~one every 1.5 seconds). A typical 5-seed harvest makes about 530 individual calls (5 seeds x 106 modifiers), which takes ~15 minutes at our default cadence. Hammering the endpoint faster than that quickly leads to IP blocks. You can leave the tab open and check back; results stream into the table as they're found, and you can stop early to keep the keywords found so far.
Can I find video topic ideas this way?
Yes, this is the use case the tool is built for. Start with a broad seed in your niche ("gardening", "guitar", "python tutorial") and let the harvest run. Filter the resulting table by the question-word modifiers ("how to", "what is", "why does") to surface tutorial-friendly topics, or by the comparison words ("vs", "or") to find versus-content ideas. Sort by Volume desc to see what your audience is actually searching for.