How Many Hashtags Should You Use on YouTube? (Shorts vs Videos, With Data)

Use 3 to 5 hashtags, and make them specific to the video rather than generic. That rule holds for both long videos and Shorts: pick the exact topic tag, one broader parent tag, and one or two specifics. For a Short, lead with #Shorts and add 2 or 3 topical tags behind it. YouTube technically allows far more, but past 60 hashtags on one video it throws out all of them, and the data below shows top-ranking videos don’t pile them on either.

What does YouTube actually allow?

YouTube’s help page, “Using hashtags for video search,” sets three rules. Hashtags can sit in either the title or the description. If a video ends up with more than 60 hashtags, YouTube ignores every hashtag on that video, not just the ones past 60. And hashtags that are misleading or unrelated to the video’s content can be removed. There’s no stated minimum or recommended count; the 3 to 5 figure below comes from how top-ranking videos actually behave, not from anything YouTube publishes.

One placement detail: if a video’s title has no hashtag, the first 3 hashtags in the description display above the title on the watch page and in search results. That’s the only spot where placement changes what a viewer sees, so put a hashtag you want visible early in the description, not at the bottom.

How many hashtags do top videos use? (our data)

We pulled the top YouTube search results for 50 niche keywords, from #fitness to #woodworking, and counted every hashtag on the 5,416 videos and Shorts that came back (CrestlineSocial’s 50-niche study of 5,416 top YouTube videos and Shorts, October 2026). Only 55% used a hashtag at all, ranging from 20% in #investing up to 88% in #drawing. Where hashtags showed up, they were a short, specific set rather than a long list: the exact niche tag, a parent topic, and one or two specifics.

The clearest pattern held across all 50 niches: the niche keyword itself was the most-used tag every time, on a median 82% of the tagged videos in each niche. For baking content, #baking appears on most of the tagged videos that rank for it. That’s a stronger signal than any count-based advice: match the exact term people search for before adding anything broader. To see current numbers for your own niche, our TikTok hashtag generator and Instagram hashtag generator pull live hashtag usage counts from top YouTube videos for any keyword.

Shorts vs long videos: is there a difference?

Not in the rules. YouTube’s hashtag policy and the 60-hashtag limit apply the same way to Shorts and to long-form videos. #Shorts is worth adding by default on a Short, since it’s one of the signals the Shorts feed uses to identify the format, alongside aspect ratio and length. After that, treat it like a long video: 2 or 3 topical tags, led with the exact niche term. For a long video, skip #Shorts and use the exact niche tag plus a parent topic.

Our study’s sample included both formats, and the same rule, a small number of specific tags beats a long list, held across both. Since 24 August 2026 YouTube counts a view the moment any video starts playing, Shorts or long-form, with the stricter engaged views kept for monetization; see our breakdown of how YouTube counts views for that side of it.

Which hashtags should you pick?

Three, in order:

1. The exact niche tag. The term someone would actually type to find this content, not a cleverer synonym for it.
2. A parent topic. One level broader than the exact tag: #gym under #fitness, #cooking under #recipe, #outdoors under #camping.
3. One or two specifics. The sub-topic that separates this video from the rest of the niche, like #sourdough under #baking or #deadlift under #gym.

Skip #viral, #fyp and #trending. #viral appeared among the top tags in 25 of the 50 niches we studied, #fyp in 23, #trending in 21. But within a typical niche, each showed up on only a handful of the videos that actually rank, not the majority. Spend that slot on a specific tag instead.

Where do hashtags go, title or description?

Either works for the hashtag to count. The difference is display. A hashtag in the title shows as a clickable tag right there. Put hashtags in the description instead, and the first 3 display above the title on the watch page and in search results, as long as the title itself has none. Most creators do best keeping the title readable and placing 3 to 5 hashtags near the top of the description.

Hashtags vs tags: which matters?

Hashtags and the video “tags” field in Studio are different things. Hashtags are visible, clickable, and tied directly to search and the Shorts feed. YouTube tags play a minimal role; the field mainly helps with a commonly misspelled title and otherwise does little for discovery. Hashtags come first if you’re deciding where to spend effort. For the tags field itself, our YouTube tag generator fills it in seconds, and our guide on how to use and add tags on YouTube for better reach covers the mechanics.

Sources

• YouTube Help: Using hashtags for video search
• CrestlineSocial’s 50-niche study of 5,416 top YouTube videos and Shorts, October 2026