YouTube tags are optional keywords you add in YouTube Studio: YouTube Help says they play a minimal role in discovery and mainly help with common misspellings, while the title, thumbnail and description matter more. On 13 October 2026, across 40 videos in the top five results for 8 Italian B2B searches, 20% had no tags at all and 62% had the search term in the title.
People keep asking about it. In the UK, "youtube tags" gets an average of 480 searches a month and "youtube description" 170 (Google Ads data via DataForSEO, checked on 13 October 2026).
What they find is mostly tag generators and creator guides. On the UK mobile results page, 3 of the first 7 organic listings were tools that generate or extract tags, alongside guides from Sprout Social (last updated in 2022) and DashClicks that explain where to click but bring no data on what ranks.
So how many of those rules do the videos that actually rank follow?
Nobody had checked. We did, on searches a business makes rather than a creator: laser cutting, plastic moulding, forklifts, business software.
When a company asks us to look at its channel, we usually find the same three problems:
- the title carries the model name, not the words a buyer types into YouTube;
- the description is one line, often just a link to the homepage;
- the tags are copied from video to video, sometimes with competitors' names inside.
On Google we work on exactly this with SEO: matching the words a company uses with the words its buyers search. For Macropix, an Italian LED wall manufacturer, the single word "ledwall" earned 67,560 Google impressions in twelve months, and Google Ads has brought 2,906 quote requests since 2018. For Valore Solare, a solar and storage installer, enquiries total 1,506.
YouTube works the same way, with different fields (the full picture is in our guide to YouTube SEO).
In this guide:
- the official limits for the five fields in one table;
- our test on 40 videos from 8 sector searches;
- a five-block description template;
- the two cases where tags still earn their place.
Let's get into it.
Titles, descriptions and tags: what they are and how many characters you get (per YouTube, not per the tools)
The title is the video's name, the description is the text under the player, and tags are keywords only the channel owner sees. YouTube does not weigh them equally: title, thumbnail and description are the most important for discovery, tags play a minimal role.
Here are the limits, taken from official pages on 13 October 2026:
| Field | Limit | Who sees it | What YouTube says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | 100 characters | Everyone, in search and under the video | Should accurately represent the content | YouTube Data API |
| Description | 5,000 characters (5,000 bytes via the API) | First lines before "more", the rest on request | Use 1-2 main keywords, unique for each video | YouTube Help |
| Tags | 500 characters in total, commas included | Channel owner only | Minimal role, useful for misspellings | YouTube Help |
| Hashtags | Over 60 and all are ignored | Up to 3 next to the title | Must relate to the content | YouTube Help |
| Chapters | At least 3, first at 00:00, each 10 seconds or longer | Everyone, on the player bar | Help viewers jump to key sections | YouTube Help |
Two details from the API documentation. Descriptions are counted in bytes, so accented letters take two: upload a long French, German or Italian description from a third-party tool and it can stop short. And a tag containing a space costs two extra characters, because it gets wrapped in quotation marks: "led wall" uses 10, not 8.
The test: 40 business videos in the top five (and what they share)
On 13 October 2026 we ran 8 business searches on YouTube in Italy: taglio laser lamiera (sheet metal laser cutting), installazione pannelli fotovoltaici (solar panel installation), stampaggio materie plastiche (plastic moulding), software gestionale aziendale (business management software), verniciatura a polvere (powder coating), macchine per imballaggio (packaging machines), carrello elevatore (forklift) and impianto di aspirazione industriale (industrial extraction system). For the top 5 videos of each we pulled title, description and tags with DataForSEO.
27 of the 40 videos belong to companies (manufacturers, dealers, software vendors), including 6 of the 8 number-one results.
| What we measured | All (40) | Companies (27) | Creators and media (13) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search term in the title | 62% | 70% | 46% |
| A search word in the first 150 characters of the description | 80% | 74% | 92% |
| Link in the first 150 characters of the description | 20% | 19% | 23% |
| Chapters in the description | 10% | 4% | 23% |
| At least one hashtag | 22% | 15% | 38% |
| No tags | 20% | 26% | 8% |
| Median description length | 901 characters | 709 | 1,568 |
| Median number of tags | 8 | 7 | 15 |
Source: Visilay check on 13 October 2026, YouTube Italy, top 5 videos for 8 searches, data from DataForSEO. A small descriptive sample of the Italian market, not a correlation study.
Read in order, the table says three things.
First: companies look after the title best. 70% of their videos have the search term in the title, against 46% for creators, who lean on curiosity instead.
Second: companies look after the description worst. A median of 709 characters against 1,568, and chapters in 1 video out of 27. One video in fifth place for "industrial extraction system" has no description and no tags.
Third: metadata alone does not explain the ranking. The number one for "sheet metal laser cutting", from Depedri srl, has a 46-character description (a link to its website) and no tags. 2 of the 8 number-one videos have no tags.
So titles and descriptions don't matter?
They get you into the race, they don't win it on their own. YouTube's performance FAQ lists how well the title, description and video content match the viewer's search as one search factor, next to viewer engagement. How the rest works is in our guide to the YouTube algorithm.
On niche searches like these, though, the competition is weak: whoever fills in the fields properly starts ahead.
How to write a YouTube title (the buyer's words, not the model number)
A YouTube title is the line that decides whether a video shows up for a search and whether anyone clicks. YouTube Help suggests picking 1-2 main keywords and using them in both the title and the description, and asks for titles that accurately represent the video.
In our test, the number-one videos had shorter titles: a median of 45.5 characters against 57 for the whole sample, out of a maximum of 100.
The rules we use with clients:
- search term first, brand last: "Electric forklift STILL RX 60" also reaches people who don't know the model yet;
- the words buyers actually type: "how it works", "price", "installation", not the brochure slogan;
- no all caps or strings of punctuation, which YouTube lists among the signs of misleading titles;
- don't change the title of a video that's performing: YouTube's FAQ advises against it.
Weak: "LS7 | New". Better: "Metal laser cutting machine LS7 | BLM GROUP".
That second title is real, and it hides a detail most guides skip. BLM GROUP uploaded the video with an English title, but Italian searchers see it in Italian: "Macchina per il taglio laser lamiere LS7". It is the only translated title among the 40. YouTube lets you translate titles and descriptions, and the translations show up in search for viewers using that language. With over 800,000 views it is the most watched of the five for its search: one video, several markets, no re-upload.
Many rules for a web page's meta title carry over almost word for word, starting with click-through rate.
How to write a YouTube description (the first two lines do the work)
A YouTube description is the text of up to 5,000 characters under the player: the first lines show before "more", the rest only to people who expand it. YouTube Help asks you to describe the video in those first lines and to write a unique description for each video.
In our test, 80% of videos had a search word in the first 150 characters. Only 20% put a link in the same space, and those that did often put nothing else.
The template we give clients, in five blocks:
- two sentences that answer the search: what the video shows and who it's for, with the main keyword;
- the right link: the product or service page the video is about, not the homepage;
- chapters, if the video runs longer than two or three minutes;
- a paragraph of context: specs, materials, sectors, questions the video answers;
- the fixed part: who you are, contact details, related playlists. YouTube lets you save it as a default description for every upload.
And length?
YouTube sets no minimum. The "200 words" in many guides is the authors' opinion: in our test the median was 901 characters. If the video is also embedded on your site, the advice in our video SEO guide applies, along with what we found on how video affects rankings.
Chapters: the field 1 company in 27 uses
Chapters split a video into clickable sections. The rules are simple: the first timestamp is 00:00, you need at least 3, each lasts at least 10 seconds. YouTube can generate them automatically, but chapters you write replace them.
In our test 1 business video out of 27 had chapters, against 3 out of 13 for creators. That's a double miss: Google Search Central says that for YouTube videos the key moments shown in Google results can be set with timestamps in the description, and that Google prioritises key moments set by the uploader.
Your videos explain a product: does the description?
You've just seen that 26 business videos out of 27 have no chapters, and that a company's median description is less than half a creator's. We review the titles, descriptions and linked pages of your videos against the searches your buyers make, on YouTube and on Google.
Book a strategy callYouTube tags: do they still matter? (yes, in two specific cases)
YouTube tags are optional keywords, visible only in YouTube Studio, that help the platform understand what a video is about. YouTube's performance FAQ answers the question of how important tags are bluntly: they aren't, and they are mainly used to correct common misspellings.
In the US, Backlinko's study of 1.3 million videos found only a weak correlation between keyword-rich tags and rankings. It dates from 2017: a snapshot of that time.
In our Italian test, tags were nearly always there (32 videos out of 40), with a median of 8 and a maximum of 28. But only 12 of the 40 had a tag containing the full search term.
And some uses are creative:
- a laser machine manufacturer has 28 tags, 13 of which name rival manufacturers or their models, plus translations into German, Polish, Dutch, French and Spanish;
- a packaging machinery dealer tags its stretch wrapper with a competitor's brand and model;
- a plastic moulding video carries tags about used cooking oil collection, almost certainly left over from another upload.
Does it work?
We don't know, and YouTube doesn't say. We do know YouTube Help treats adding excessive tags to a description as a policy issue, and its hashtag policy bans hashtags unrelated to the content. For a field that carries little weight, the risk isn't worth it.
It's the story of meta keywords on the web: a hidden field, stuffed with everything for years, that Google stopped using. YouTube isn't there yet.
The two cases where tags help
- misspellings and spelling variants: "ledwall", "led wall", "led-wall". It is the only use YouTube names explicitly;
- your brand written the way customers write it: acronyms, names with and without spaces, model numbers without hyphens.
In our experience 5-10 relevant tags are enough, well under 500 characters. You don't need a generator to find them: YouTube Help points to the Search tab in YouTube Analytics and to Google Ads Keyword Planner. If you still want a tool, our vidIQ vs TubeBuddy comparison shows what each really does.
To add them: YouTube Studio, Content, click the video, Show more, tags separated by commas, Save. The rest of the upload is in our guide on how to upload a YouTube video.
Hashtags on YouTube: how they differ from tags (and why the top results skip them)
Hashtags are words preceded by # in the title or description, clickable and public. YouTube shows up to 3 of them next to the title, chosen by engagement, and if there are more than 60 it ignores them all.
In our test 9 videos out of 40 used them, and none of the 8 number-one videos did. For a long business video we treat them as optional. Shorts are a different story, covered in our guide to YouTube Shorts for business.
Titles and descriptions in AI Overviews and ChatGPT (what a machine can read)
Google's AI Overviews cite YouTube videos on this topic too. On 13 October 2026, on mobile in the UK, the AI Overview for "youtube tags" cited 11 sources, 4 of them YouTube videos. In Italy, the one for "tag youtube" cited 8 sources, 4 of them videos.
And they don't always get the rules right. That same UK overview said YouTube ignores all hashtags beyond 15, while YouTube Help says 60, and suggested adding competitors' names as tags.
A model that summarises picks up what it finds written down: title, description, chapters. Tags don't appear on the page viewers see. That's why a description that answers the question in its first lines is also the most direct way to give Google and ChatGPT a sentence worth quoting.
Nobody can promise a citation. We measured who gets picked across 24 searches in our piece on YouTube videos cited by AI, and it's the work behind our GEO service.
Checklist: 7 things to check before you hit Publish
- Is the buyer's search term in the title, near the start?
- Is the title closer to the 45 characters of the top results than to the 100 limit?
- Do the first two lines of the description answer the search?
- Does it link to the right product or service page?
- Are there chapters, starting at 00:00?
- Do the tags cover only variants and misspellings, with no competitor names?
- Are the title and description translated for the markets you sell into?
For the image that sits next to the title, see our guide to YouTube thumbnails: in search results, title and thumbnail are read together.
YouTube titles, descriptions and tags: FAQ
It depends: YouTube sets no number, only a 500-character limit in total, commas included. In our test of 40 videos the median was 8 tags. We use 5-10, only for variants and misspellings.
No. They are only visible and editable in YouTube Studio. Hashtags, by contrast, are public and clickable, and up to 3 appear next to the title.
Yes, at any time in YouTube Studio or the app. YouTube's performance FAQ does advise against changing a video that is already performing well.
It depends: the limit is 5,000 characters and YouTube sets no minimum. The first lines, visible before "more", matter most. In our test the median was 901 characters.
No. They are separate fields: hashtags sit in the title or description and are public, tags are hidden. If you use more than 60 hashtags, YouTube ignores all of them.
In short (and an idea for your next video)
Title: the buyer's words first, the brand last.
Description: two sentences that answer, then the right link, then chapters.
Tags: a few, for variants and misspellings, never competitors' names.
Hashtags: optional, and never more than 60.
One last thing the test shows: companies write the title like a product sheet and the description like a business card. We'd do the opposite, because the description is the only place where a video can tell a buyer, Google and an AI what doesn't fit in the title. Write it the way your best salesperson answers the phone when a customer asks "do you do this too?".
