Top YouTube Searches (April 2026)

Top 100 YouTube searches globally

The table below shows the 100 most searched terms on YouTube worldwide as of early 2026. These are YouTube-specific search volumes, not Google search volumes.

Rank	Keyword	Monthly Search Volume
1	asmr	27,000,000
2	bad bunny	19,000,000
3	music	13,000,000
4	mrbeast	12,000,000
5	asmongold	11,000,000
6	poppy playtime chapter 5	9,600,000
7	markiplier	9,300,000
8	song	9,200,000
9	karaoke	8,900,000
10	minecraft	8,400,000
11	meri zindagi hai tu	7,600,000
12	wwe	7,600,000
13	bad bunny super bowl	7,400,000
14	sml	7,300,000
15	lofi	7,300,000
16	songs	7,300,000
17	coryxkenshin	7,200,000
18	penguiz0	6,900,000
19	super bowl	6,700,000
20	dream	6,500,000
21	ishowspeed	6,100,000
22	caseoh	6,000,000
23	phonk	5,900,000
24	arknights endfield	5,800,000
25	epstein files	5,700,000
26	nba	5,500,000
27	sidemen	5,200,000
28	epstein	5,200,000
29	super bowl 2026	5,200,000
30	bad bunny halftime show	5,000,000
31	mr beast	5,000,000
32	news	4,900,000
33	jynxzi	4,900,000
34	ufc	4,900,000
35	iron lung	4,900,000
36	movies	4,900,000
37	arc raiders	4,700,000
38	marvel rivals	4,700,000
39	valorant	4,700,000
40	my mix	4,600,000
41	moist critical	4,500,000
42	iran	4,400,000
43	forza horizon 6	4,200,000
44	sourav joshi vlogs	4,200,000
45	j cole	4,200,000
46	wemmbu	4,200,000
47	roblox	4,200,000
48	hytale	4,200,000
49	youtube	4,200,000
50	michael jackson	4,000,000
51	type beat	4,000,000
52	deadlock	4,000,000
53	trump	4,000,000
54	joe bartolozzi	4,000,000
55	nfl	3,900,000
56	snl	3,800,000
57	drake	3,800,000
58	podcast	3,700,000
59	taylor swift	3,700,000
60	jeffrey epstein	3,600,000
61	joe rogan	3,600,000
62	superbowl	3,600,000
63	movie	3,600,000
64	techno gamerz	3,600,000
65	state of play	3,600,000
66	react to	3,500,000
67	alysa liu	3,500,000
68	cocomelon	3,500,000
69	tmkoc	3,500,000
70	kendrick lamar	3,500,000
71	eminem	3,500,000
72	trailer	3,400,000
73	overwatch	3,400,000
74	movie reaction	3,400,000
75	dhurandhar song	3,400,000
76	grammys 2026	3,300,000
77	resident evil requiem	3,300,000
78	musica	3,300,000
79	mukbang	3,300,000
80	ludwig	3,200,000
81	bruno mars	3,200,000
82	4k	3,200,000
83	mewgenics	3,200,000
84	carryminati	3,200,000
85	fox news	3,200,000
86	helldrivers 2	3,200,000
87	ign	3,200,000
88	4k video	3,100,000
89	bts	3,100,000
90	crimson desert	3,100,000
91	high guard	3,100,000
92	jacksepticeye	3,100,000
93	fandoms react to	3,000,000
94	white noise	3,000,000
95	xqc	3,000,000
96	lacari	3,000,000
97	candace owens	3,000,000
98	lck	3,000,000
99	flamingo	2,900,000
100	super bowl halftime show	2,900,000

Source: Semrush Keyword Analytics for YouTube, February 2026

What the global data tells us

ASMR dominates YouTube search in 2026 with 27 million monthly searches worldwide. That’s roughly 10 searches per second, all day, every day. The category has held a top position for years, but 2026 marks the first time it has clearly pulled ahead of music and creator searches at the global level.

Bad Bunny’s presence is the biggest story in this dataset. Three variations of his name appear in the top 100 (“bad bunny” at 19M, “bad bunny super bowl” at 7.4M, and “bad bunny halftime show” at 5M), giving him a combined 31.4 million searches. His Super Bowl halftime performance drove a massive spike that persisted well beyond the event itself.

Music-related searches still account for roughly 20% of the top 100. Terms like “music,” “song,” “songs,” “karaoke,” “lofi,” “phonk,” “type beat,” and “musica” rack up a combined 60+ million monthly searches. Add individual artist names (Taylor Swift, Eminem, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Bruno Mars, BTS, Michael Jackson, J Cole) and the music category easily claims the largest share of YouTube search demand.

Gaming is the second most dominant category. Minecraft (8.4M), Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 (9.6M), Arknights Endfield (5.8M), Valorant (4.7M), Roblox (4.2M), Hytale (4.2M), Forza Horizon 6 (4.2M), Marvel Rivals (4.7M), Deadlock (4M), Overwatch (3.4M), Resident Evil Requiem (3.3M), Helldrivers 2 (3.2M), MewGeniCs (3.2M), and Crimson Desert (3.1M) all appear. That’s 14 gaming titles in the top 100.

Several of these are upcoming or recently released games (Arknights Endfield, Hytale, MewGeniCs, Crimson Desert), which shows how YouTube has become the first place people go for trailers, gameplay reveals, and reviews of new titles.

Creator searches are massive but consolidating. MrBeast appears twice (“mrbeast” at 12M + “mr beast” at 5M = 17M total), making him the single most searched creator. Markiplier (9.3M), Asmongold (11M), CoryxKenshin (7.2M), IShowSpeed (6.1M), CaseOh (6M), Penguiz0 (6.9M), Sidemen (5.2M), and Jynxzi (4.9M) round out the top creator searches.

The rise of reaction content is notable. “React to” (3.5M), “fandoms react to” (3M), and “movie reaction” (3.4M) appear as standalone search categories, which signals that reaction videos have become their own distinct content genre on the platform.

News and politics have grown in YouTube search. “Epstein files” (5.7M), “epstein” (5.2M), “jeffrey epstein” (3.6M), “trump” (4M), “iran” (4.4M), “news” (4.9M), “fox news” (3.2M), and “candace owens” (3M) show that viewers increasingly turn to YouTube for news and political commentary rather than traditional outlets.

One odd detail: “youtube” itself gets 4.2 million searches per month on YouTube. People are literally searching for YouTube on YouTube. We see the same pattern with Google searches, where “Google” is consistently one of the most searched terms on Google.

Rank	Keyword	Estimated US Search Volume
1	asmr	8,100,000
2	mrbeast	5,400,000
3	markiplier	4,200,000
4	snl	3,800,000
5	coryxkenshin	3,600,000
6	super bowl 2026	3,500,000
7	bad bunny	3,400,000
8	ishowspeed	3,200,000
9	joe rogan	3,100,000
10	fox news	2,900,000
11	nba	2,800,000
12	minecraft	2,700,000
13	music	2,600,000
14	ufc	2,500,000
15	lofi	2,400,000
16	trump	2,300,000
17	taylor swift	2,200,000
18	nfl	2,100,000
19	epstein files	2,000,000
20	kendrick lamar	1,900,000
21	fortnite	1,800,000
22	roblox	1,700,000
23	caseoh	1,700,000
24	penguiz0	1,600,000
25	movies	1,600,000
26	song	1,500,000
27	moist critical	1,500,000
28	drake	1,400,000
29	jynxzi	1,400,000
30	poppy playtime chapter 5	1,300,000
31	karaoke	1,300,000
32	cocomelon	1,200,000
33	espn	1,200,000
34	wwe	1,200,000
35	eminem	1,100,000
36	candace owens	1,100,000
37	podcast	1,100,000
38	ludwig	1,100,000
39	xqc	1,000,000
40	valorant	1,000,000
41	sml	950,000
42	white noise	950,000
43	news	900,000
44	try not to laugh	900,000
45	grammys 2026	880,000
46	bruno mars	850,000
47	j cole	800,000
48	dude perfect	780,000
49	marvel rivals	750,000
50	flamingo	720,000

Top 50 most subscribed YouTube channels (2026)

Search data tells you what people look for. Subscriber data tells you where they end up. Here are the 50 largest YouTube channels as of early 2026.

Rank	Channel	Subscribers	Total Views
1	MrBeast	468M	100.54B
2	T-Series	310M	319.41B
3	Cocomelon	200M	212.48B
4	SET India	188M	183.41B
5	Vlad and Niki	147M	114.73B
6	Kids Diana Show	137M	120.53B
7	Stokes Twins	137M	27.44B
8	Like Nastya	131M	118.22B
9	KIMPRO	131M	118.06B
10	Zee Music Company	122M	83.27B
11	WWE	112M	100.82B
12	PewDiePie	110M	29.43B
13	Goldmines	109M	31.50B
14	Alejo Igoa	108M	29.18B
15	Sony SAB	105M	136.65B
16	BLACKPINK	100M	40.36B
17	Alan’s Universe	99.7M	57.45B
18	Zee TV	97.2M	111.57B
19	ChuChu TV	97M	57.34B
20	A4	92.5M	36.38B
21	Pinkfong	84.3M	52.35B
22	BANGTANTV (BTS)	82.3M	25.50B
23	Toys and Colors	82.1M	104B
24	KL BRO Biju Rithvik	81.8M	72.70B
25	Topper Guild	81.8M	29.12B
26	Colors TV	81.7M	80.60B
27	ZAMZAM Electronics	81.5M	39.60B
28	T-Series Bhakti Sagar	81.5M	41.90B
29	5-Minute Crafts	80.8M	28.30B
30	Tips Official	80.8M	48.40B
31	HYBE LABELS	79.6M	41B
32	Cristiano Ronaldo	78.2M	948.47M
33	Justin Bieber	77.1M	35.60B
34	Aaj Tak	74.6M	40.80B
35	Shemaroo Filmi Gaane	74.3M	33.20B
36	ISSEI	72.9M	14.81B
37	Mark Rober	73.2M	60.12B
38	Fede Vigevani	72.5M	23.61B
39	Infobells Hindi	72.1M	47.33B
40	HAR PAL GEO	72M	72.80B
41	YRF	71.3M	53.43B
42	El Reino Infantil	70.9M	70.77B
43	Sony Music India	70.2M	54.74B
44	Wave Music	69.5M	46.98B
45	Anaya Kandhal	68.3M	81.22B
46	Canal KondZilla	68M	40B
47	YOLO AVENTURAS	67.5M	26.17B
48	ARY Digital HD	67.3M	69.65B
49	EminemMusic	66.4M	35.68B
50	Movieclips	65.9M	68.07B

Source: YouTube, Wikipedia, and Social Blade data compiled by Backlinko, February 2026

Key patterns in the subscriber data

Kids’ content is the hidden giant. Eight of the top 50 channels (Cocomelon, Vlad and Niki, Kids Diana Show, Like Nastya, ChuChu TV, Pinkfong, El Reino Infantil, YOLO Aventuras) are children’s channels. Together, they account for over 934 million subscribers. This category is vastly underrepresented in search data because young children don’t type search queries — their parents do, or they navigate through recommendations.

Subscribers don’t equal views. T-Series has 310 million subscribers compared to MrBeast’s 468 million, but T-Series has 3x more total views (319B vs 100B). This gap exists because T-Series uploads thousands of music videos that accumulate views passively over years, while MrBeast’s content generates enormous initial spikes that taper off. The lesson: subscriber counts measure audience breadth, but total views measure content longevity.

India dominates the subscriber leaderboard. Sixteen of the top 50 channels produce content primarily in Hindi or for Indian audiences (T-Series, SET India, Zee Music Company, Goldmines, Sony SAB, Zee TV, Aaj Tak, and others). India’s 462 million YouTube users — the largest national user base — drive this trend.

Low-volume, high-impact creators exist. Mark Rober has 73.2 million subscribers with just 235 videos. That averages roughly 311,000 subscribers per video, compared to Aaj Tak’s 74.6 million subscribers across nearly 500,000 videos. Quality over quantity clearly works on YouTube, but so does quantity over quality. Both strategies can build massive channels.

YouTube search trends by category

Breaking the top 100 global searches into categories reveals where user attention actually goes.

Music (estimated 30% of top 100 search volume)

Music is YouTube’s foundational use case. The platform started as a video-sharing site, but it became the world’s largest free music streaming service. Searches like “music” (13M), “song” (9.2M), “karaoke” (8.9M), “songs” (7.3M), “lofi” (7.3M), and “phonk” (5.9M) represent generic music intent — people looking for something to listen to, not a specific artist.

Artist-specific searches add to this significantly. Bad Bunny (31.4M combined), Taylor Swift (3.7M), Drake (3.8M), Kendrick Lamar (3.5M), Eminem (3.5M), Bruno Mars (3.2M), BTS (3.1M), Michael Jackson (4M), and J Cole (4.2M) all appear in the top 100.

The genre breakdown is shifting. “Phonk” (5.9M) and “lofi” (7.3M) are genre searches that didn’t exist a few years ago. “Type beat” (4M) reflects the rise of music producers searching for instrumental templates. These searches suggest YouTube’s music audience is fragmenting into more niche genres.

Gaming (estimated 25% of top 100 search volume)

Gaming is YouTube’s most consistent category. Unlike music (which spikes around releases and events), gaming searches maintain steady volume year-round, with bumps around major game launches.

The gaming searches in the top 100 fall into two buckets:

Game titles: Minecraft (8.4M), Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 (9.6M), Roblox (4.2M), Valorant (4.7M), Forza Horizon 6 (4.2M), Hytale (4.2M), Marvel Rivals (4.7M), Deadlock (4M), Overwatch (3.4M), Arknights Endfield (5.8M), Resident Evil Requiem (3.3M), Helldrivers 2 (3.2M), MewGeniCs (3.2M), Crimson Desert (3.1M)

Gaming creators: Markiplier (9.3M), Asmongold (11M), CoryxKenshin (7.2M), IShowSpeed (6.1M), CaseOh (6M), Jynxzi (4.9M), Techno Gamerz (3.6M), Jacksepticeye (3.1M)

Upcoming game titles (Arknights Endfield, Hytale, Crimson Desert) generating millions of searches before release shows that YouTube is the primary discovery platform for new games. Trailers, gameplay leaks, and first-look videos are what drive these pre-release searches.

Creators and personalities (estimated 25% of top 100 search volume)

YouTube personalities drive a massive share of search volume. People go to YouTube specifically to watch their favorite creators, not just to find content on a topic. Here are the most searched creators in the top 100:

Creator	Combined Monthly Searches
MrBeast (“mrbeast” + “mr beast”)	17,000,000
Asmongold	11,000,000
Markiplier	9,300,000
SML	7,300,000
CoryxKenshin	7,200,000
Penguiz0	6,900,000
IShowSpeed	6,100,000
CaseOh	6,000,000
Sidemen	5,200,000
Jynxzi	4,900,000

MrBeast’s 17 million combined monthly searches make him the most searched individual on YouTube. To put that in context, that’s more monthly YouTube searches than “taylor swift,” “drake,” and “kendrick lamar” combined.

News, politics, and current events (estimated 10% of top 100 search volume)

YouTube’s role in news consumption has grown dramatically. The Epstein files story alone generated three top-100 entries totaling 14.5 million combined monthly searches (“epstein files” at 5.7M, “epstein” at 5.2M, “jeffrey epstein” at 3.6M). This shows how YouTube becomes the go-to platform when major news stories break, particularly stories with a documentary or investigative angle.

Other news and politics entries include “trump” (4M), “iran” (4.4M), “news” (4.9M), “fox news” (3.2M), “candace owens” (3M), and “snl” (3.8M, which functions partly as political commentary). The combined volume for news-related searches in the top 100 exceeds 30 million per month.

Kids’ content and functional searches

“Cocomelon” (3.5M) is the only kids’ channel that appears in the top 100 search terms, despite children’s channels dominating the subscriber rankings. This mismatch happens because kids’ content is primarily consumed through recommendations and autoplay rather than search.

Functional searches like “white noise” (3M), “my mix” (4.6M), “4k” (3.2M), and “4k video” (3.1M) reveal that many people use YouTube as a utility — for sleep, focus, or testing display quality — rather than for entertainment.

Key YouTube statistics for marketers (2026)

If you’re planning content marketing strategy, these numbers provide important context:

YouTube has over 2.49 billion monthly active users and 122 million daily active users
The platform hosts approximately 3.9 billion videos with 500 hours of new content uploaded every minute
The United States generates 11.7 billion monthly visits to YouTube.com, more than any other country
81% of US adults use YouTube, making it the most used online platform in the country
YouTube’s audience skews slightly male (53.9% male, 46.1% female globally)
The 25-34 age group represents YouTube’s largest demographic segment
YouTube’s ad revenue reached $10.26 billion in Q3 2025 alone
82% of marketers report YouTube as the most effective platform for video marketing
YouTube Premium and YouTube Music have surpassed 100 million subscribers combined

These statistics matter because they define the size of the opportunity. YouTube isn’t just a video platform. It’s a search engine with more daily active users than Bing, a music streaming service larger than most standalone platforms, and an advertising network that generates more quarterly revenue than many tech companies earn in a year.

How to find YouTube search volumes

You can look up YouTube search volumes using Analyze AI’s free YouTube Keyword Tool. Enter a seed keyword and the tool returns related YouTube search terms with their estimated monthly volumes.

[Screenshot description: Analyze AI YouTube Keyword Tool interface showing a keyword search with results including search volume, keyword difficulty, and related terms]

This is useful for two purposes: finding what people search for on YouTube (the topic of this article) and doing keyword research for your own YouTube channel or video SEO strategy.

Here’s how to use the data:

Step 1: Start with a broad seed keyword. Type a topic like “project management” or “cooking” into the YouTube Keyword Tool to see what related terms people actually search for on YouTube.

[Screenshot description: YouTube Keyword Tool with “project management” as the seed keyword, showing related search suggestions with volumes]

Step 2: Look for patterns in the results. Group the keywords by intent. Some will be informational (“what is project management”), some will be tutorial-based (“how to use Asana”), and some will be comparison-based (“Monday.com vs Asana”). Each type of keyword suggests a different video format.

Step 3: Check the competition. Use the Keyword Difficulty Checker to gauge how hard each keyword is to rank for on Google. For YouTube specifically, look at the top-ranking videos for your target keyword and assess whether you can create something measurably better.

[Screenshot description: Keyword Difficulty Checker showing difficulty scores for several YouTube-related keywords]

Step 4: Optimize your video metadata. Once you’ve chosen a keyword, use it in your video title, description, and tags. The SERP Checker can show you how current top results structure their titles and descriptions, which gives you a template to work from.

[Screenshot description: SERP Checker showing top results for a YouTube keyword with title structures visible]

You can also use the Keyword Generator to expand a single seed keyword into hundreds of related terms, including long-tail variations that may be easier to rank for.

What top YouTube searches mean for SEO

YouTube search data isn’t just useful for YouTube creators. It’s valuable for anyone doing SEO or content marketing.

YouTube searches signal content demand. If millions of people search for “how to use Notion” on YouTube, that same demand exists on Google. Video keywords often overlap with blog keywords, and Google increasingly embeds YouTube videos directly in search results. Creating both a video and a blog post for the same keyword lets you capture traffic from both search engines.

Trending YouTube searches reveal content gaps. When a new game, product, or trend starts generating millions of YouTube searches (like “Arknights Endfield” or “Poppy Playtime Chapter 5”), it often means written content hasn’t caught up yet. You can use this data to find topics where you can publish a comprehensive blog post or resource page before the competition does.

YouTube search patterns inform keyword strategy. The dominance of branded searches (creator names, channel names) on YouTube mirrors what happens in traditional search. Building brand awareness so that people search for your brand name directly is one of the most durable SEO strategies. If you run a YouTube channel, growing branded search volume for your channel name is a leading indicator of channel health.

How YouTube content shows up in AI search

Here’s something most articles about YouTube searches miss entirely: YouTube content is increasingly cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

When someone asks an AI chatbot “what are the best Minecraft mods?” or “how does intermittent fasting work?”, the AI often pulls from YouTube video transcripts, descriptions, and metadata in its response. YouTube videos with clear, well-structured descriptions and transcripts are more likely to be cited as sources in AI-generated answers.

This means the same YouTube search data we’ve covered in this article has a second application: understanding what topics AI models are likely to draw from YouTube content for.

Track how AI search engines reference your content

If you publish YouTube videos (or written content that competes with YouTube content for the same keywords), you can use Analyze AI to track how AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot reference your brand and content.

Analyze AI Prompts Dashboard showing tracked prompts with visibility scores, sentiment, and competitor mentions across AI engines

The Prompts dashboard shows which AI prompts mention your brand, your visibility score across different AI models, and which competitors appear alongside you. For example, if you publish a YouTube channel about project management, you can track prompts like “best project management tools” and see whether AI engines cite your content or your competitors’.

Find AI search opportunities your competitors are missing

The Competitors view in Analyze AI shows where your competitors get mentioned by AI engines and where they don’t.

Analyze AI Competitors dashboard showing competitor rankings, prompt share, and prompt losses

If a competitor’s YouTube channel gets cited by ChatGPT for a high-volume topic but yours doesn’t, that’s a gap you can close. The same YouTube search data we’ve discussed tells you which topics drive the most demand, and the AI visibility data tells you which of those topics you’re winning or losing in AI search.

See which sources AI engines trust

The Sources dashboard in Analyze AI shows the specific URLs and domains that AI engines cite most frequently in your space.

Analyze AI Sources dashboard showing citation analytics with top cited domains, citation counts, and engine breakdowns

This is where YouTube data becomes directly actionable. If you see that AI engines cite YouTube transcripts from competitor channels but not from yours, you know exactly what to create. The combination of YouTube search volume data (which tells you what to create) and AI citation data (which tells you whether AI engines will surface it) gives you a more complete picture than either dataset alone.

Monitor AI traffic to your site

If you’re creating content that targets popular YouTube search terms, Analyze AI’s AI Traffic Analytics shows you how many visitors arrive at your site from AI search engines specifically.

Analyze AI AI Traffic Analytics dashboard showing visitor metrics, engagement data, and multi-source tracking from AI search engines

This data lets you measure whether your content strategy is actually working in AI search. You can see which landing pages receive AI traffic, which AI engines drive the most visits, and how that traffic converts compared to organic search traffic from Google.

The bottom line

YouTube remains the world’s largest video search engine with over 2.49 billion monthly users. In 2026, ASMR leads global search volume at 27 million monthly searches, followed by Bad Bunny (19M), music (13M), and MrBeast (12M).

The data shows five dominant content categories: music, gaming, creators, news/politics, and kids’ content. Music and gaming are the most consistent categories year over year, while news and creator searches fluctuate with current events and viral moments.

For marketers and content creators, this data serves two purposes. First, it tells you what content people want — and by extension, what topics have the highest demand. Second, it signals where opportunities exist for both YouTube SEO and AI search visibility. The brands and creators that treat YouTube as both a search engine and an AI training ground will have an advantage as AI search engines continue to grow.

Use Analyze AI’s free YouTube Keyword Tool to research YouTube search volumes for any keyword, and sign up for Analyze AI to track how AI search engines reference your brand alongside these high-demand topics.

Top YouTube Searches (April 2026)

Table of Contents

Top 100 YouTube searches globally

What the global data tells us

Top YouTube searches in the United States

How the US differs from global trends

Top 50 most subscribed YouTube channels (2026)

Key patterns in the subscriber data

YouTube search trends by category

Music (estimated 30% of top 100 search volume)

Gaming (estimated 25% of top 100 search volume)

Creators and personalities (estimated 25% of top 100 search volume)

News, politics, and current events (estimated 10% of top 100 search volume)

Kids’ content and functional searches

Key YouTube statistics for marketers (2026)

How to find YouTube search volumes

What top YouTube searches mean for SEO

How YouTube content shows up in AI search

Track how AI search engines reference your content

Find AI search opportunities your competitors are missing

See which sources AI engines trust

Monitor AI traffic to your site

The bottom line

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