YouTube Title Style Study

Key takeaways

1. 51.8% of the 4,517 Shorts-length titles (up to 3 minutes) on YouTube's most-popular charts used an emoji and 45.1% a hashtag, against 13.2% and 6.9% of long-video titles. See details
2. 51.9% of long-video titles on the English-language charts had at least one all-caps word of three letters or more, against 22.5% of Shorts-length titles. See details
3. The median popular title ran 53 characters for long videos and 52 for Shorts-length videos, about 10 words. See details
4. 35.7% of long-video titles contained a number and 17.9% spoke in the first person (I, my, we, our); only 8.0% asked a question. See details
5. The four English-language charts look alike: emoji in 50% to 55% of Shorts-length titles and all-caps words in 48% to 54% of long-video titles. India's chart titles were longer, with more hashtags and, on long videos, more emoji. See details
6. Among the 100 most-subscribed channels' October uploads, the median channel used a pipe or dash in 85.0% of its video titles. See details

What do popular Shorts titles look like?

We read the titles of the 6,776 videos on YouTube's most-popular charts for the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and India (YouTube Data API), October 31 to November 2, 2026, each video counted once. 4,517 ran 3 minutes or less, most of them Shorts. 51.8% of their titles used an emoji and 45.1% a hashtag such as #shorts. Only 18.2% contained a number.

What do popular long-video titles look like?

Longer videos are titled differently. Of the 2,259 chart videos over 3 minutes, 51.9% of those on the English-language charts had at least one all-caps word of three letters or more, the "I Tried EVERY..." style. 35.7% contained a number, 21.0% an exclamation mark and 34.1% a pipe or dash separating a series or channel name. 17.9% spoke in the first person and 4.6% addressed the viewer as "you". Only 13.2% used an emoji.

How long are popular titles?

Short. The median long-video title ran 53 characters (10 words) and the median Shorts-length title 52 characters, about half of YouTube's 100-character limit (YouTube Help). Our YouTube metadata study reports title length for the most-subscribed channels' uploads.

Do countries title videos differently?

The four English-language charts are close to one another. India's chart is different: its titles were longer, and more carried hashtags and separators, often a channel or show name after a pipe, while long-video titles there used emoji far more often. Word-level checks are left out for India, where most titles are not in English. A video can sit on several charts, so the rows overlap.

How do the biggest channels title their videos?

The 100 most-subscribed channels include many music labels, TV networks and kids' channels, and some post dozens of near-identical episode titles a month, so we report the median channel rather than pooling every upload. Among the 54 channels with at least five regular videos from October 1 to 28, 2026, the median channel used a pipe or dash in 85.0% of its video titles and a number in 30.4%; its median title ran 73 characters. Among the 50 posting at least five Shorts, the median channel used an emoji in 41.5% of Shorts titles and a hashtag in 29.1%.

What this means for creators

• Shorts and long videos follow different conventions. Emoji and hashtags are the norm on Shorts and the exception on long videos; all-caps words run the other way.
• Short titles are the norm. Popular titles use about half the space YouTube allows.
• Prevalence is not proof. These are the styles popular videos use, not a test of which style wins clicks; a title and thumbnail work as a pair.

Mark Studios designs YouTube thumbnails and edits YouTube videos. Our sponsorship disclosure study uses the same chart sample.

How we ran the study

Videos. YouTube's most-popular chart, overall and for each video category the chart serves (up to 200 videos each), for the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and India on October 31 to November 2, 2026, read through the YouTube Data API. Each video counts once (6,776); live and upcoming streams are left out. Length from the API's duration: up to 3 minutes (4,517 videos) or over 3 minutes (2,259).

Features. Emoji (Unicode emoji and symbol blocks); a digit; an all-caps word of three or more Latin letters; ? and !; brackets; a pipe, or a dash with spaces on both sides; a hashtag; a currency sign before a number; first person (I, I'm, I've, my, we, our as whole words); "you" or "your". All-caps, first person and "you" use only videos on the four English-language charts (2,936 up to 3 minutes, 1,855 over); the other features use all five.

Top channels. Uploads from October 1 to 28, 2026 of the 100 most-subscribed channels, read for our engagement rate study; a channel counts when it posted at least five regular videos (or Shorts), and word-level features use only its English-language channels (14 for videos, 15 for Shorts).

Limitations

• Popular, not all. The most-popular charts lean to new, widely watched videos, music, gaming and entertainment.
• Prevalence, not performance. We did not test whether any title style earns more views.
• Three days. Charts change daily; a later read may differ.
• English-language word checks. All-caps, first-person and "you" checks only work for English titles.

How to cite this study

Link to the section you use, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/youtube-title-style-study#shorts. To cite the study as a whole:

Mark Studios. "YouTube Title Style Study." Published November 2, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/youtube-title-style-study

@misc{markstudios_youtube_title_style_study_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{YouTube Title Style Study}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/youtube-title-style-study},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-02}
}

Our measurements and the CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.

Sources

Download the per-video data (CSV)

Widely quoted video statistics on other topics are traced to their origin, with a verdict on each, in our research fact-check.

1. Google for Developers, YouTube Data API: Videos: list (chart=mostPopular). Accessed 2026-11-02.
2. YouTube Help, Add titles to your videos. Accessed 2026-11-02.

Update policy and change log

We plan to rerun the read on later charts. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• November 2, 2026: First published.