YouTube Data API v3 Reference

YouTube mentions may correlate with AI visibility in some GEO research, but this file does not include a Google-owned source or methodology for a numeric benchmark. This API provides authoritative YouTube data directly from Google.

Endpoints Used

Method	Quota Cost	Description
`search.list`	100 units	Search for videos matching a query
`videos.list`	1 unit	Get video details, statistics, content
`channels.list`	1 unit	Get channel info, subscriber count
`commentThreads.list`	1 unit	Get top comments on a video

Daily Quota

Default: 10,000 units/day (free). This allows: - ~100 searches per day, OR - ~10,000 video/channel lookups per day

Data Available

Video Search

Title, channel, channel ID, published date
Description (first 300 chars), thumbnail URL
Views, likes, comments count, duration

Video Details

Full description, tags, category ID
Duration, definition (HD/SD), has captions
Topic categories (Wikipedia URLs)
Views, likes, comments, favorites
Top 10 relevant comments with likes

Channel Info

Title, description, custom URL
Subscriber count, video count, total views
Country, published date, thumbnail

Authentication

API key only (read-only public data). No OAuth needed.

Enable the API

Go to console.cloud.google.com/apis/library
Search for "YouTube Data API v3"
Click Enable

No billing required. The API key you already have for PSI/CrUX works.