The top 100 YouTube searches of the year are determined in a study that examines the search volume of over 800 million keywords.
YouTube doesn’t officially provide this data, but Ahrefs produces a report each year based on data in its Keyword Explorer tool.
The top searches in the report are broken down into US searches and global searches.
First, let’s take a look at the top searches in the US.
These are the top 20 searches on YouTube in the US. For a full list of the top 100 searches, see the original report.
Top 20 US Searches (& Search Volume)
pewdiepie (3,770,000)
asmr (3,230,000)
Music (2,670,000)
Markers (2,380,000)
Altstadtstrasse (2,040,000)
Pewdiepie vs. T Series (1,940,000)
Billie Eilish (1,910,000)
fortnite (1,630,000)
David Dobrik (1,610,000)
Jacksepticeye (1,580,000)
James Charles (1,560,000)
Joe Rogan (1,560,000)
Baby Shark (1,500,000)
BTS (1,350,000)
dantdm (1,330,000)
snl (1,260,000)
Play muffle (1,140,000)
cnn (1,120,000)
wwe (1,100,000)
Lofi (1,040,000)
People primarily turn to YouTube searches for: music, games, branded content, and established creators.
That poses a challenge when it comes to building audiences for smaller independent channels.
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However, it’s not impossible as there are ways to drive traffic to videos outside of search results.
For example, the videos suggested by YouTube contribute significantly to the success of the content of many channels.
For more information on success with YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, see these resources:
How YouTube generates and ranks suggested videos
YouTube algorithm: 7 key results you need to know
Some observations:
It seems the whole world is using YouTube more for music, as Ahrefs points out:
“Searches for artists, bands, and songs dominate our list of the top 100 global YouTube searches, with a staggering 57/100 searches (almost ⅔) being music-related.
So compared to the US, it seems the rest of the world uses YouTube a lot more for music.”
However, the rest of the world isn’t as into branded content, as only two of the top 10 global searches contain branded content.
