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Youtube Video Search Scraper
Search and extract YouTube video metadata at scale using keywords, filters, or channel/playlist URLs. Retrieve titles, view counts, thumbnails, keywords, and more — with full control over upload date, duration, features, and sort order.
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YouTube Video Search Scraper: Extract Video Data by Keyword & Channel
Introduction
YouTube hosts over 800 million videos across virtually every topic, language, and niche. For content strategists, SEO researchers, marketers, and data analysts, the ability to systematically search and extract video data from YouTube is a significant competitive advantage. Whether you're tracking what types of car review content are trending this month, auditing a competitor's channel library, or building a dataset of high-performing videos in your industry, manually collecting this data is neither scalable nor practical.
The YouTube Video Search Scraper solves this by automating video discovery and metadata extraction through two flexible modes: keyword-based search with granular filters, or direct scraping from channel and playlist URLs. Both modes deliver the same rich structured output, giving you full flexibility over how you source your video list.
Scraper Overview
The YouTube Video Search Scraper is designed for bulk extraction of YouTube video metadata, combining search functionality with direct URL-based scraping. Unlike single-video scrapers, this tool is built for discovery — finding and extracting data from large sets of videos based on topic, recency, format, or channel.
Key capabilities include:
- Dual input modes — search by keyword with filters, or scrape directly from channel/playlist URLs
- Advanced search filtering — filter by upload date, video duration, feature type (4K, HDR, Live, etc.), and sort order
- Comprehensive metadata extraction — captures 17 fields per video including download URLs
- Per-URL item limits — control how many videos are extracted from each URL or search result
- Error resilience — skip failed or inaccessible URLs without interrupting the full job
This scraper is well-suited for SEO specialists researching keyword-driven video content, content creators studying competitor channels, media analysts monitoring trending topics, data scientists building labeled video datasets, and marketers tracking video performance across niches.
Input and Output Format Details
Input Format
The scraper supports two mutually exclusive input modes. Use one at a time — if keyword is provided, the URL-based section is disabled, and vice versa.
Mode 1 — Keyword Search with Filters
keyword (string) — The search term to query YouTube with. Equivalent to typing a term into YouTube's search bar. Leave empty if using URL mode.
upload_date (select) — Filters results by how recently the video was published. Available options:
| Value | Label |
|---|---|
| (empty) | Any |
last_hour | Last hour |
last_day | Last day |
last_week | Last week |
last_month | Last month |
last_year | Last year |
duration (select) — Filters results by video length. Available options:
| Value | Label |
|---|---|
| (empty) | Any |
short | Under 4 minutes |
medium | Between 4 and 20 minutes |
long | Over 20 minutes |
feature (select) — Filters results by a specific video feature or format. Available options:
| Value | Label |
|---|---|
| (empty) | Any |
hd | HD |
4k | 4K |
hdr | HDR |
360 | 360° |
3d | 3D |
vr180 | VR180 |
live | Live |
creative_commons | Creative Commons |
subtitles_cc | Subtitles/CC |
location | Location |
sort_by (select) — Controls the order search results are returned. Available options:
| Value | Label |
|---|---|
relevance | Most Relevant |
view_count | Most Popular |
upload_date | Alphabetical |
rating | Rating |
Mode 2 — Channel or Playlist URLs
urls (array of strings) — A list of YouTube channel or playlist page URLs to scrape videos from. Supports channel URLs (youtube.com/@channelname/featured, /videos, /playlists) and playlist URLs. Add URLs one by one or use Bulk edit to paste a prepared list. Ensure keyword is empty when using this mode.
ignore_url_failures (boolean) — When set to true, the scraper skips any URL that fails to load (private, deleted, or restricted) and continues processing the remaining URLs. Strongly recommended for batch runs.
General Options (Apply to Both Modes)
max_items_per_url (integer, default: 20) — Limits the number of videos extracted per URL or per search result page. Useful for controlling job size and cost when scraping large channels or broad search terms. Set higher for comprehensive channel audits; set lower for quick sampling.
Output Format
Each extracted video returns a structured record with 17 fields:
| Field | Type | Description & Analytical Value |
|---|---|---|
| Video ID | String | YouTube's unique video identifier. Use for cross-referencing with YouTube's API, deduplicating datasets, or building direct video links. |
| Title | String | Full video title. Core field for keyword analysis, topic clustering, and content strategy research. |
| Length (Seconds) | Integer | Video duration in seconds. Enables filtering by format (short-form vs. long-form) and supports engagement benchmarking. |
| Keywords | Array | Creator-defined tags for the video. Highly valuable for SEO keyword research, topic mapping, and niche analysis. |
| Channel ID | String | Unique ID of the publishing channel. Use to group videos by creator or join with channel-level datasets. |
| Is Owner Viewing | Boolean | Technical flag indicating owner viewing status. Relevant in specific API or analytics contexts. |
| Short Description | String | Video description text. Useful for NLP analysis, content summarization, and understanding creator intent or SEO strategy. |
| Is Crawlable | Boolean | Whether the video is indexable by search engines. Key signal for SEO visibility research. |
| Thumbnail | String (URL) | Direct link to the video's thumbnail image. Use for visual content analysis, dataset labeling, or populating dashboards. |
| Allow Ratings | Boolean | Whether likes/dislikes are enabled on the video. Can indicate content sensitivity or moderation choices. |
| View Count | Integer | Total views at time of scraping. Primary metric for popularity analysis, benchmarking, and trend tracking. |
| Author | String | Channel display name. Useful for attribution, filtering by creator, and competitive analysis. |
| Is Private | Boolean | Whether the video is set to private. Filter this out in post-processing when public-only content is required. |
| Is Unplugged Corpus | Boolean | Internal YouTube classification flag. |
| Is Live Content | Boolean | Indicates live stream content. Important for separating live broadcasts from standard uploads in research datasets. |
| Is TV/Film Video | Boolean | Classifies the video as TV or film content. Useful for content-type segmentation and dataset labeling. |
| Download URLs | Object/Array | Available download stream URLs for the video. Useful for developers building media pipelines or archiving workflows. |
Example Output
Usage Guide
Step 1: Choose Your Input Mode
If you have a topic or research question — use keyword mode. Enter your search term and apply filters to narrow results by recency, duration, or video feature. This is ideal for market research, trend analysis, or competitive keyword studies.
If you have a specific channel or playlist to audit — use URL mode. Paste the channel's /featured, /videos, or playlist URL directly. This is ideal for channel-level audits, creator research, or building topic-specific datasets from curated playlists.
⚠️ Do not combine both modes in the same run. If
keywordis populated, theurlssection is disabled. Leavekeywordempty to activate URL mode.
Step 2: Apply Filters (Keyword Mode Only)
Refine your search results using the available filters:
- Use
upload_date: "last_month"or"last_week"to focus on trending or recently published content - Use
duration: "long"to find in-depth tutorials or documentary-style videos - Use
feature: "4k"or"hdr"to filter for high-production-value content - Use
sort_by: "view_count"to surface the most popular results for a keyword
Step 3: Set Item Limits
Use max_items_per_url to control how many videos are extracted per URL or search result. The default is 20. For a quick competitive sample, 10–20 may be sufficient. For comprehensive channel audits or large-scale dataset building, increase this limit accordingly.
Step 4: Run and Export
Submit your configuration and wait for the job to complete. Export results as JSON or CSV for use in spreadsheets, databases, BI tools, or custom analytics pipelines.
Best Practices
- Test with a small
max_items_per_urlfirst (5–10) before running large jobs to verify output quality. - Use
sort_by: "view_count"when doing competitive research to prioritize high-performing content. - Filter by
upload_date: "last_month"for trend analysis to ensure results reflect current content patterns. - Use the
keywordsfield for SEO research — creator-defined tags are often more precise than titles for understanding topic targeting. - Set
ignore_url_failures: truefor all URL-mode jobs to handle private or deleted videos gracefully.
Common Issues
- Keyword returns unrelated results — try more specific phrases (e.g.,
"electric car review 2025"instead of"car"). - Channel URL returns no results — verify the URL includes a valid path such as
/featuredor/videos, and that the channel is public. - Fewer results than expected — some filters (e.g., combining
feature: "4k"withupload_date: "last_hour") may significantly reduce the available result pool.
Benefits and Applications
Keyword & SEO Research: Extract creator-defined keywords and titles from top-ranking videos in your niche to identify topic patterns, content gaps, and keyword strategies your competitors are targeting.
Competitor Channel Auditing: Scrape an entire channel's video library using URL mode to analyze publishing frequency, popular topics, average view counts, and content format distribution.
Trend Monitoring: Use upload_date: "last_week" or "last_month" combined with sort_by: "view_count" to identify what content is gaining traction right now in any topic area.
Dataset Creation: Build labeled video datasets for machine learning, NLP research, or media studies applications by combining keyword-based discovery with structured metadata extraction.
Content Planning: Analyze successful videos — their titles, descriptions, keywords, and lengths — to inform your own publishing strategy with data-backed decisions rather than guesswork.
Conclusion
The YouTube Video Search Scraper combines the flexibility of keyword-driven discovery with the precision of direct channel and playlist scraping, delivering structured metadata for every video it finds. With granular filter controls, configurable item limits, and 17 fields of output per video, it provides the depth and scalability needed for serious content research, SEO analysis, and competitive intelligence work.
Start your first extraction today — whether you're exploring a trending keyword or auditing an entire channel library.
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