Youtube Seo Audit

Full YouTube Channel Audit (Advanced)

Process

1. Resolve channel: accept @handle, /channel/UC..., /c/name, or

a video URL. Normalize to channel ID via API or WebFetch.

1. Ask for Studio exports before starting any retention or CTR analysis:

• Analytics → Advanced Mode → Last 28/90 days CSV for:
• Content (video-level stats)
• Traffic source
• Audience → geography + top subtitles
• Key moments (retention curves for top 10 videos)

Without these, score only metadata and structure; label retention metrics as "unknown".

1. Fetch channel surface: /about, /videos, /shorts, /playlists,

/community, /featured. Extract:

• Channel name, handle, description, country, links, join date
• Banner and profile image presence
• Total videos, views, subs (if public)
• Topic categories (from API channels.list?part=topicDetails)
• Upload cadence from last 25 long-form + last 25 Shorts

1. Sample videos: pull the last 25 uploads and the top 25 all-time

by views. For each: title, description, visible tags, view count, like count, comment count, duration, upload date, thumbnail URL, chapters.

1. Delegate (parallel via Agent tool when available):

• youtube-seo-channel — identity, about, playlists, trailer, session chains
• youtube-seo-video — run on top 3 + bottom 3 performers (contrast analysis)
• youtube-seo-thumbnail — review last 12 thumbnails as a grid + SERP differentiation
• youtube-seo-keywords — topical authority score + gap analysis
• youtube-seo-competitor — detect 3-5 direct competitors + pattern extraction

1. Compute topical authority: cluster the channel's videos by topic

and measure concentration (entropy). High concentration = high authority on that cluster. Diffuse = weak algorithmic classification.

1. Compute velocity consistency: stddev of days-between-uploads. Low

stddev + regular cadence = Browse feed promotion friendly.

1. Compute session chain strength: % of videos that appear in at least

one playlist; % of playlists with ≥5 videos; avg playlist view count.

1. Score: aggregate into YouTube Health Score (0-100)
2. Report: write YT-AUDIT-REPORT.md + YT-ACTION-PLAN.md to the

current directory.

Scoring Weights

| Category | Weight | Why | |----------|--------|-----| | Retention & Watch Time (Tier 1) | 25% | Dominant ranking signal; only scorable with Studio CSV | | Video Metadata Quality | 18% | Title, description, tags, chapters, entities, captions | | Thumbnails (CTR) | 15% | Second-largest lever for impressions | | Topical Authority | 12% | Channel classification strength | | Content Strategy (cadence, format mix, length) | 10% | Browse feed friendliness | | Channel Setup (identity, about, playlists) | 8% | Foundational but ceiling-limited | | Discoverability (translations, captions, hashtags) | 7% | International + accessibility multiplier | | Engagement (likes, comments, saves) | 5% | Secondary signal, correlates with above |

If Studio CSV is missing, Retention & Watch Time drops to 0 weight and other weights rescale proportionally — the report flags this explicitly.

Report Structure

Executive Summary

• Overall YouTube Health Score (0-100) with CSV-available flag
• Channel stage: Starter (0-1k) / Growing (1k-100k) / Established (100k+)
• Niche detected + topical authority concentration score
• Top 5 critical issues with estimated impact
• Top 5 quick wins with expected lift

Retention & Watch Time (only if Studio CSV provided)

• APV distribution across sample (median, p25, p75)
• Retention-cliff inventory: which videos have cliffs, where, why
• Intro-retention (0:30) median vs niche benchmark
• Session contribution: which videos drive next views
• End-of-video drop analysis

Traffic Source Mix (from Studio CSV)

• % Browse / Suggested / Search / External / Notifications / Shorts feed
• Which surface is over/under-indexed vs niche norm
• Strategy implication: optimize for the dominant surface, then diversify

Video Metadata (aggregate)

• Title patterns: avg length, keyword-front usage, hook types, emotional

intensity

• Description: above-fold usage, avg length, entity coverage, link block

presence, chapter presence

• Tags: avg count, first-tag alignment with title
• Chapters: % of videos with ≥3 starting at 0:00
• Captions: manual vs auto, languages translated
• Key Moments schema eligibility

Thumbnails

• Style consistency across the last 12
• Text legibility at 120px
• Face / emotion usage vs niche
• Color palette analysis (dominant colors across the grid)
• SERP differentiation sample for top 3 target keywords
• Specific thumbnails to redesign

Topical Authority

• Topic cluster map (from video titles, tags, transcripts)
• Concentration score (0-100, higher = stronger classification)
• Cluster drift: is the channel becoming more or less focused over time?
• Recommended consolidation: playlists to build, videos to unlist or

reclassify, topics to stop covering

Content Strategy

• Upload cadence: median days-between, stddev, regularity score
• Format mix: long-form / Shorts / live %
• Length distribution: median, with mid-roll ad eligibility %
• Series / playlist alignment
• Premiere usage

Channel Setup

• Delegated to youtube-seo-channel

Engagement Snapshot

• Like-to-view ratio trend
• Comment velocity and creator reply rate
• Pinned-comment usage and reply rate
• Community tab activity (last 30 days)

Discoverability

• Target keywords present in titles/descriptions
• Translated metadata for top 3 audience countries
• Caption languages available
• Hashtag strategy

Velocity & Freshness

• First-24h view velocity distribution for last 25 videos
• Videos decaying fast vs holding evergreen
• Evergreen:topical mix recommendation

Safety & Compliance

• Made-for-Kids flag consistency
• Altered/synthetic content disclosure usage (for AI content)
• Copyright claims on top videos
• Community guideline strikes
• Monetization status

Priority Definitions

• Critical: Blocks discovery, damages CTR, or breaks algorithmic

classification (fix this week)

• High: Significantly limits ranking or watch time (fix this month)
• Medium: Optimization opportunity (fix this quarter)
• Low: Nice to have (backlog)

Each recommendation includes estimated impact and the Studio metric to watch after implementation.

Data Sources Policy

First-party only. YouTube Data API v3, YouTube Studio CSV exports (user-provided), yt-dlp, YouTube suggest API, WebFetch on youtube.com, and the local helper scripts in scripts/. Do NOT pull data from SocialBlade, VidIQ, TubeBuddy, NoxInfluencer, HypeAuditor, or similar third parties — they rate-limit and error, which blocks the audit.

The seo-dataforseo MCP is OPTIONAL. If it is installed AND returns data cleanly, it may supplement SERP position checks. On any error, skip it silently and continue with native sources — do not retry.

Error Handling

Core principle: degrade gracefully, score what you can, flag what you can't, never fabricate Tier 1 numbers.

| Scenario | Action | |----------|--------| | Channel URL not resolvable | Try @handle, /channel/UC..., and /c/name forms; if all fail, ask user for the canonical URL | | Fewer than 5 videos published | Skip metadata aggregation; focus on setup + strategy | | API key missing or quota exhausted | Fall back to yt-dlp --flat-playlist -J for channel crawl; tags and topicDetails will be missing — note in report | | WebFetch blocked on a page | Retry once with the /channel/UC... canonical form; if still blocked, skip that section and flag | | Any optional tool (DataForSEO etc.) errors | Skip it, continue, do not retry — the audit must not depend on optional tools | | yt-dlp transcript fetch fails | Retry with --sub-lang en.*,a.en; on second failure, skip transcript-dependent analysis for that video | | No Studio CSV provided | Retention and CTR analysis skipped; rescale scoring weights and flag explicitly in the executive summary | | Mixed-language channel | Segment metadata analysis per language before aggregation | | MFK channel | Skip comment/engagement analysis (disabled); emphasize thumbnail + playlist | | Partial sub-skill failure | Continue the audit with remaining sub-skills; list failed sections at the bottom of the report with their error codes |

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: deeployCO
• Source: deeployCO/youtube-seo-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.