YouTube Keyword Suggestions Scraper

Get localized YouTube autocomplete suggestions without an API key. Suggestions are not measured search volumes, competition scores, extracted video tags, or guaranteed rankings. Coverage varies by locale and time and is not exhaustive.

Quick start

{"keywords":["minecraft"],"language":"en","country":"US","alphabetExpansion":false,"maxItems":5}

An empty API object uses these same defaults. Existing API input with a single keyword string remains supported. Up to 50 seeds of 1–200 characters are accepted. Invalid types, blank seeds, unsupported modes and invalid locale syntax fail before requests. Language accepts codes such as en, ja, zh-TW; country accepts two-letter codes such as US, JP. The endpoint determines locale support.

Inputs and limits

• mode: suggest only.
• keywords: case-insensitive repeated seeds are processed once.
• language / country: defaults en / US.
• alphabetExpansion: default false; true also requests seed plus Latin letters a–z, even for non-Latin seeds.
• maxItems: integer 1–5000, default 5; global across all seeds and expansions, including existing rows on resurrection.

Default change: previously omitted expansion/limit meant true/500. Specify those values explicitly to retain that breadth. Processing checks charging and result capacity before each request and write. Each HTTP attempt times out after 15 seconds. Transport and HTTP failures are retried up to three attempts with short backoff; malformed successful responses are not retried. Larger inputs require an appropriate overall run timeout. A small limit can stop before later seeds.

Output

Each row is one unique (keyword, seed) association, case-insensitive and Unicode-normalized. The same keyword under different seeds remains multiple results, preserving the existing contract. First occurrence wins across expansions. Existing fields remain: keyword, seed, language, country, rank, source, scraped_at. Added fields are stable id, exact query, and source_url. Rank is the 1-based position in that query's suggestion response, not search rank or popularity.

Illustrative output, not a current capture:

{"keyword":"minecraft survival","seed":"minecraft","language":"en","country":"US","rank":2,"source":"youtube","scraped_at":"2026-09-05T12:00:00+00:00","query":"minecraft","id":"<SHA-256 of keyword, seed and locale>","source_url":"https://suggestqueries-clients6.youtube.com/complete/search?client=youtube&ds=yt&q=minecraft&hl=en&gl=US"}

Export the dataset as JSON or CSV. Existing dataset rows, including old-format rows, are the delivery journal on resurrection. Already delivered associations are not pushed/charged again in normal resurrection. Keep inputs unchanged on resurrection; use a new run for a fresh snapshot. A crash between platform storage and billing is not an application-level transactional guarantee.

Failures and coverage

A valid empty response succeeds with zero result events. Failed queries are recorded and processing continues for other queries. If any query fails and no rows are available, the run fails; otherwise delivered partial rows remain available. Error records are not billable rows. RUN_SUMMARY in key-value storage records complete, limit_reached, partial, or source_error, row count, and the number of attempted queries for this invocation (not individual HTTP retry attempts). failedQueries and partial preserve source failures even when a later result or cost limit stops the run; stop_reason records the stopping condition. Complete means all requested queries were processed, not exhaustive YouTube coverage. Previously empty requests may repeat after resurrection.

No API key, proxy, browser fallback or paid third-party service is required. Public endpoints may change or block requests. Report reproducible input and run ID through the Actor issue channel without private data.

Pricing

Existing prices are unchanged: $0.0005 per delivered keyword-plus-seed result and the listed start event of $0.00005 per GB. The start event has a 1 GB minimum, so at 512 MB the start component is $0.00005. Illustrative event totals: 5 results $0.00255; 500 results $0.25005; 30 separate 50-result runs $0.7515. Actual pricing depends on current Console configuration and tier. These are event calculations, not measured infrastructure costs or margin guarantees. No result charging capacity means no further source work; infrastructure can still consume resources during a timeout.

Turn suggestions into a video research shortlist

1. Start with one seed relevant to your audience, such as Shopify, with expansion off and a small global limit. Add seeds in separate runs when you need comparable coverage; a shared limit can leave later seeds unqueried.
2. Export suggestions with their seed, locale and exact query. Filter for topics your customers actually ask about. Autocomplete alone does not measure demand or revenue potential.
3. Paste selected suggestions into the queries input of YouTube Search Scraper to inspect matching videos, channels and public view counts. Its per-query coverage summary helps identify missing results.
4. For repeat research, keep the seed, locale and limits fixed and check RUN_SUMMARY before comparing snapshots. A missing suggestion can reflect a bounded response or changed autocomplete, rather than declining demand.

The two Actors run separately and each has its own pricing. This Actor does not automatically start or charge for video searches.