How to Extract Keywords From YouTube Videos

Last updated 7 October 2026 · By Infinity Tools

Many YouTube videos include a hidden list of tags — keywords the creator added to describe the video. They are not shown on the watch page, but they often sit in the page's HTML source. Reading them can reveal how a video was positioned for search. This guide walks through the manual "View Page Source" method step by step.

What are YouTube tags?

Tags (also called keywords) are words and phrases a creator assigns to a video in YouTube Studio. They give YouTube extra context about the topic — useful when a title is short or ambiguous. Studying a competitor's tags shows the search terms they are targeting, which is valuable for keyword research, content planning, and understanding a niche.

A quick reality check: tags carry less weight than they once did. YouTube has stated that titles, thumbnails, and descriptions matter far more, and tags mainly help with common misspellings. Still, they remain a useful window into a creator's intent.

The View Page Source method, step by step

When a browser loads a YouTube watch page, the video's tags are frequently embedded in a <meta name="keywords"> element inside the page's HTML. You can read it directly:

Open the video in a desktop browser (this is easiest on Chrome, Edge, or Firefox).
Open the page source. Right-click an empty part of the page and choose View page source, or press Ctrl + U (Windows) / ⌘ + Option + U (Mac). A new tab opens showing the raw HTML.
Search within the source. Press Ctrl + F (or ⌘ + F) and type keywords.
Find the meta tag. Look for a line similar to this:

<meta name="keywords" content="budget spreadsheet, etsy, passive income, side hustle, ...">

The comma-separated list inside content="…" is the video's tags. Select and copy them for your research.

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If you do not see any keywords

Not every video has tags. If your search returns nothing, one of these is usually the reason:

The creator did not add any. Tags are optional, and many creators skip them.
You searched the rendered page, not the source. Make sure you are in the View page source tab (its URL starts with view-source:), not the normal video page.
The layout shifted. The meta tag sits near the top of the HTML, inside the <head> section. Scrolling up can help if the in-page search misses it.

Why do it this way?

The View Page Source method is completely free, needs no account, and shows the real data straight from YouTube's own HTML. It is a reliable manual technique when you only need to check one or two videos. For larger research, the same information is what keyword tools read automatically.

Use tags responsibly

Tags are visible in public HTML, but treat other creators' keyword research as inspiration, not something to copy wholesale. Reusing another channel's exact tag list will not replicate its success — relevance to your own content matters most. Focus on understanding the search intent behind the tags, then choose keywords that genuinely fit your video.

Once you understand how a video is positioned, the next lever is the thumbnail. See What Makes a High-CTR Thumbnail, or use the Infinity Tools tool to download and study any video's thumbnail in every resolution.

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