Hashtags
Hashtags on YouTube are public, clickable keywords prefixed with #. They appear above the video title (when used in the description) or directly in the title itself. Each video supports up to 15 hashtags; only the first 3 from the description surface as the linked hashtag row above the title. Clicking a hashtag opens a feed of videos tagged with the same term, similar to how hashtags work on TikTok or Twitter.
YouTube hashtags are clickable, viewer-visible keywords starting with # — placed in the title or description to help discovery and to surface a video in hashtag-specific feeds.
Why Hashtags matters for YouTube creators
Hashtags are a discovery surface, not a ranking signal. They don't directly boost a video's placement in Search or Suggested, but they do create an additional path: the hashtag feed. A trending hashtag (#shorts, #ai, #fyp variants) can pull traffic from viewers browsing those feeds. Hashtags also help YouTube cluster topically-similar content for the recommendation system. The most effective hashtag strategy is 3-5 specific, niche-relevant hashtags in the description plus 1-2 broad ones to capture feed traffic — not 15 generic spam hashtags.
Hashtags in practice
A travel vlogger tags every Bali video with #bali #balitravel #balivlog — the channel's videos consistently appear in the #balitravel feed and earn 5-8% of monthly views from those clicks.
A creator stuffs 14 generic hashtags (#viral #fyp #funny #comedy etc.) into every video description; algorithmic distribution doesn't improve and the hashtag link strip looks spammy to viewers.
See Hashtags on real channels
FameLifter pulls public hashtags data for 500K+ YouTube channels — refreshed hourly via the official YouTube Data API v3.