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Creating a YouTube Search Feed

Last Updated by Manuel EscobarSeptember 15, 2026

Would you like your YouTube feed to show videos that match a search, instead of everything from one channel?

In this guide, we’ll create a search feed and then narrow it down. That means choosing how results are sorted, how long the videos are, when they were published, and more.

Requirements: Search feeds require a paid version of YouTube Feed, and a YouTube API key. Every search the plugin runs is sent with your key, so the feed stays empty without one.

Before you get started, make sure YouTube Feed is installed and activated and that you’ve added your API key.

Note: Already in the builder, looking at the Search Term field? What to type in it starts in the How Does the Search Term Field Work section. The steps below cover building a search feed from scratch.

Creating Your Search Feed

To get started, go to YouTube Feed » All Feeds in your WordPress dashboard.

The WordPress admin menu with YouTube Feed then All Feeds selected

Then, click Add New.

The All Feeds screen with an arrow pointing at the Add New button

Next, choose Search as the feed type.

Note: Channel comes selected already. To build your feed from the search alone, click it to clear it.

The Select Feed Type step with Search selected and a tick in its corner

Now, type what you’d like to find in the Search Term field. We’ll use latte art for this example. Then, click Next.

The Search Term field with latte art entered and an arrow pointing at the Next button

Then, pick a template for how the videos are laid out. Any of them works with a search feed, and you can change it later.

We’ll use Cards. Then, click Next to finish.

The template step with Cards selected and an arrow pointing at the Next button

Your feed is created and fills with matching videos straight away. Here’s how it looks once you add it to a page.

A published page showing the finished feed as a grid of latte art videos with titles and channel names

To change the search on a feed you have already built, open the feed and go to Settings » Feed Type. The same Search Term field is there.

Next, type your new term. To keep it, click Save.

The feed editor showing the Search Term field under Feed Type, with an arrow pointing at the Save button

Note: The Update button beside the field refreshes the preview, so you can see which videos the new term brings back before you keep it. Saving stores the change either way.

How Does the Search Term Field Work?

That one field is the whole search, so it’s worth knowing what it does with what you type.

  • Spaces are fine. latte art goes in exactly as you would type it in YouTube’s own search box.
  • A comma starts a second search. latte art,flat white runs 2 searches rather than a single one. That is what the field’s own hint means by separating terms with commas. The first term’s videos fill the feed. The second term’s follow on behind them.
  • A minus sign leaves videos out. latte art -tutorial finds latte art videos that don’t mention tutorials.
  • A pipe means either one. latte art|coffee art matches videos about either.
  • Quote marks come off. “latte art” is searched as the 2 separate words, so a phrase in quotes matches the same videos as the phrase without them.

A plain search gives you whatever YouTube thinks is most relevant. To be more specific, add filters after your search words, in the same field.

Each filter is an ampersand, a name, an equals sign, and a value, with no spaces around it. So to show the most viewed latte art videos rather than the most relevant ones, the field reads:

latte art&order=viewCount

Filters stack, and their order doesn’t matter. This one asks for the most viewed videos that are also between 4 and 20 minutes long:

latte art&order=viewCount&videoDuration=medium

These are the filters worth knowing:

  • order — date for newest first, viewCount for most viewed, rating for highest rated, or title for alphabetical. Without it, YouTube ranks by relevance, which suits most topic searches.
  • videoDuration — short for under 4 minutes, medium for 4 to 20, long for over 20.
  • publishedAfter and publishedBefore — a moment in time, written as the date, a T, the time, and a Z, all in one string: 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z. On its own, publishedAfter gives you everything since that moment.
  • channelId — restricts the search to one channel. This is the channel’s ID, which starts with UC, not its @handle. Combined with search words, it only finds videos on that channel matching those words, which on a small channel is often nothing.
  • eventType — live for streams happening now, upcoming for scheduled ones, completed for finished ones.
  • videoDefinition — high for HD only.
  • videoCaption — closedCaption for videos that have captions.
  • videoEmbeddable — true for videos that are allowed to play outside YouTube. Feeds play videos in place, so this leaves out the ones that cannot.
  • videoLicense — creativeCommon for Creative Commons videos only.
  • regionCode and relevanceLanguage — a two-letter country or language code, such as regionCode=GB or relevanceLanguage=es, for results as they rank for that audience.

Note: YouTube Feed always sets type and maxResults for you, so there’s no need to add either one. Adding one sends that parameter twice. The number of videos your feed shows is a setting in the feed itself.

Build Your Search Term

Rather than assembling the text by hand, you can choose what you would like the feed to show and copy the result. Everything below runs in your browser, so nothing you type is sent anywhere.

What to search for

Matches the video title, description and tags.
Separate with commas here. A video matching any one of them qualifies.
Separate with commas here.
The channel ID, not its @handle or URL. It starts with UC.

Narrow it down

More filters
Two-letter country code.
Two-letter language code.

Your search term

Your search term appears here.

Paste this into the feed’s Search Term field. Leave out type and maxResults, which the plugin sets itself.

Searches You Can Copy

Each of these goes straight into the Search Term field as it is. Swap the words for your own.

  • The newest videos on a topic — latte art&order=date
  • The most popular videos on a topic — latte art&order=viewCount
  • Only videos that can play inside your feed — latte art&videoEmbeddable=true
  • Short videos, newest first — latte art&videoDuration=short&order=date
  • One channel's newest videos — &channelId=UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&order=date
    This is the one case that starts with &: there are no search words, so the field opens straight into a filter.
  • A feed covering 2 topics — latte art,flat white
    Each term is searched separately. The first term's videos come first. To bring the second term in as well, raise the number of videos the feed shows.
  • Videos published after a date you choose — latte art&publishedAfter=2026-01-01T00:00:00Z
  • Live streams happening now — latte art&eventType=live
    This one depends on somebody streaming about your topic at that moment, so a niche search stays empty until one starts.
  • Creative Commons videos you can reuse — latte art&videoLicense=creativeCommon

Three small mistakes stop a search working, and none of them shows an error. Each one has its own symptom, so start with the one that matches what you're seeing.

An empty feed, from a search that starts with &q=. The field is already the search term. Writing &q=latte art sends one empty search and one real one, and YouTube returns nothing.

Older instructions used exactly that format, so it's worth checking any search you copied from elsewhere. Your words go first, on their own.

A filter that does nothing, from writing it after a comma. Because a comma starts a second search, a filter placed after one is read as search words instead. latte art,order=date searches for latte art, and then for the words "order=date". Nothing is ordered by date.

Filters go after an ampersand, so latte art&order=date is the version that works.

A loose keyword match, from quote marks around a phrase. Quote marks are removed before the search runs, so the words inside them are matched separately. The results are the same as searching without the quotes.

To tighten the results instead, add a more specific word, or leave a word out with a minus sign, as in latte art -tutorial.

That's it! You now know how to build a YouTube search feed and shape exactly which videos it shows. Next, take a look at our guide on displaying your feed with a shortcode to add it to other pages on your site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below, we've answered some of the most common questions about YouTube search feeds.

Why is my search feed empty?

Most empty search feeds come down to 2 causes. The first is a missing API key, since every search is sent with it. The second is a search term written as &q=your words, which sends an empty search alongside the real one. To fix it, drop the &q= so your words come first on their own.

Why does my feed show videos that have nothing to do with my search?

Start by looking for a comma in the Search Term field. Everything after a comma becomes a second, separate search. Its results are added after the first term's. They appear at the end, once the feed shows more videos than the first search found. If the text after the comma was meant as a filter, it belongs after an ampersand instead, as in latte art&order=date.

Can I search within one channel only?

Yes. Add &channelId= followed by the channel's ID, which starts with UC. An @handle or a channel URL won't work in its place.

How do I search for an exact phrase?

Quote marks are removed before the search runs, so "latte art" and latte art return the same videos. To narrow a broad phrase, add a word that makes it more specific, or exclude one with a minus sign, as in latte art -tutorial.

Can I sort search results however I want?

You can sort by date, view count, rating, or title using the order filter. Anything beyond those 4 is decided by YouTube's own relevance ranking, which is what you get when you leave order out. Sorting happens inside the search itself, so order=date is what asks YouTube for the newest matching videos. On a search feed, the feed's own Newest sort option keeps the order the search returned.

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