YouTube Hashtag Video & Shorts Ranking Scraper

YouTube's hashtag pages are live rankings of the videos and Shorts carrying a tag. This actor reads that feed for any hashtag, pages as deep as YouTube allows, and returns each card with its channel, engagement, publish date and hashtag totals — with no login, cookies, API key or proxy setup.

What this actor does

• Reads one or many hashtags in a single run, from bare tags, #tags or full YouTube hashtag URLs
• Pages the whole reachable feed instead of stopping at the first screen, and handles both regular videos and Shorts
• Adds detail data on request — exact views, likes, comments, subscriber counts, ISO publish dates, descriptions, keywords, categories, channel handles and avatars
• Sorts and filters locally by views, duration, publish date, minimum views or earliest publish date
• Localizes correctly with a market and language pair, including localized tab names and count formats
• Empty fields are omitted — each record contains only the values YouTube actually supplied

Output per video or Short

Field	Description
recordType	video for content rows, error for a hashtag-level failure
success	false on error rows, omitted on content rows
type	video or short
hashtag	Normalized hashtag, without #
hashtagUrl	Canonical hashtag page URL
hashtagTitle	The hashtag page's own display title
videoCountText / videoCount	Total videos tagged with the hashtag, as displayed and as an exact number when YouTube shows one
channelCountText / channelCount	Total channels posting under the hashtag, as displayed and as an exact number when available
position	1-indexed position in the returned, deduplicated result set
videoId	YouTube video ID
title	Video or Short title
url	Watch URL for videos, Shorts URL for Shorts
channelName	Channel display name
channelId	YouTube channel ID
channelUrl	Channel page URL
channelHandle	Channel handle such as @creator, when YouTube exposes it
channelAvatarUrl	Channel avatar image URL
channelSubscriberCountText	Subscriber label as displayed, e.g. 1.2M subscribers
channelSubscriberCount	Exact subscriber count only when the label is not rounded
viewCountText	Views as displayed, in the selected language
viewCount	Exact view count when available; rounded labels stay text-only
likeCountText	Likes as displayed, e.g. 11K
likeCount	Exact like count only when the label is not rounded
commentCountText / commentCount	Comment count as displayed, and as an exact number when available
publishedTimeText	Relative publish label, e.g. 3 days ago
publishedAt	ISO 8601 publish date; includes the time and source offset when YouTube exposes them
durationText	Duration label such as 12:34
durationSeconds	Duration in seconds, including Shorts when details are on
thumbnailUrl	Highest-resolution thumbnail available
isShort	true for a Short, false for a regular video
description	Video description
keywords	Video keywords/tags array
category	YouTube category name
badges	Content badges such as CC or 4K
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of the run
errorCode / error	Present on error rows: INVALID_HASHTAG, HASHTAG_NOT_FOUND, NO_VIDEOS or BLOCKED

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
hashtags	array	–	Tags to scrape, with or without #, or full hashtag URLs (required)
maxResultsPerHashtag	integer	50	Records to return per hashtag after sorting and filters (1–500)
contentType	string	all	all, videos (regular only) or shorts (Shorts only)
market	string	US	Country/region for the feed
language	string	auto	Label language; auto follows the market
includeVideoDetails	boolean	true	Add exact counts, dates, descriptions and channel metadata
sortBy	string	default	default, viewCount, durationSeconds or publishedAt
minViewCount	integer	–	Drop videos below this exact view count
publishedAfter	string	–	Keep only videos published on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)

Example: one hashtag, ranked by views

{
  "hashtags": ["#webscraping"],
  "contentType": "all",
  "maxResultsPerHashtag": 100,
  "sortBy": "viewCount",
  "includeVideoDetails": true
}

Example: regular videos in Germany

{
  "hashtags": ["cooking"],
  "contentType": "videos",
  "market": "DE",
  "language": "de",
  "maxResultsPerHashtag": 50
}

Example: recent Shorts with a view floor

{
  "hashtags": ["travel", "food"],
  "contentType": "shorts",
  "minViewCount": 100000,
  "publishedAfter": "2026-01-01",
  "sortBy": "publishedAt",
  "maxResultsPerHashtag": 100
}

Example: paste a hashtag URL

{
  "hashtags": ["https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/artificialintelligence"],
  "contentType": "videos",
  "market": "JP",
  "language": "ja",
  "maxResultsPerHashtag": 75
}

Use cases

• Trend discovery — see which videos and Shorts currently rank under a topic, in a chosen market
• Creator sourcing — find channels that repeatedly appear under a niche hashtag
• Campaign tracking — monitor a branded hashtag's ranking and engagement over time
• Format research — compare regular videos with Shorts using exact views, likes, comments and duration
• Regional analysis — compare the same hashtag across markets and languages

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube account, API key or cookies? No. Hashtag pages and the detail data are public and the actor reads them anonymously.

Why are some fields missing from Shorts? Shorts cards carry less metadata than regular video cards. With includeVideoDetails on, channel, exact views, publish date and duration are filled from each Short's detail data. Rounded labels such as 1.2M views remain text-only and are never presented as exact numbers.

How many results can I get per hashtag? Up to maxResultsPerHashtag, but YouTube's hashtag feed is a ranked sample rather than a complete index. Large tags typically expose a few hundred unique cards over many pages; small or new tags may expose only a handful.

Why does the same input return a different order on another run? YouTube shuffles hashtag feeds between requests. The actor deduplicates by video ID and assigns position from the returned set; use sortBy when you need a stable order.

What does market change? It changes which videos rank and the default language. language controls only labels and formatting; set it explicitly if you want a different language from the market default.

What is the difference between viewCountText and viewCount? viewCountText is exactly what YouTube displayed. viewCount is an integer only when the source gives an unabridged number; compact labels remain text-only, so an estimate is never passed off as exact.

What happens if a hashtag has no results? The run continues to the next hashtag and writes an error row with recordType: "error", an errorCode and a readable message.

Can I scrape more than one hashtag at once? Yes. List up to 200 unique hashtags; results are combined in one dataset with per-hashtag positions.