Youtube Data API - /channels Endpoint not Returning Smaller Users

0
votes

I am creating a networking app for musicians. I was wanting to use the Youtube Data API to let users connect their Youtube channel to their profile within my app. I got everything in place and working via making requests to URLs similar to https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?part=snippet,statistics&forUsername=PewDiePie&key=[YOUR_API_KEY]. This works great and returns this JSON:

{ "kind": "youtube#channelListResponse", "etag": "\"p4VTdlkQv3HQeTEaXgvLePAydmU/bj_rirVFbrVoTIOa6lCGdaXaG5M\"", "pageInfo": { "totalResults": 1, "resultsPerPage": 5 }, "items": [ { "kind": "youtube#channel", "etag": "\"p4VTdlkQv3HQeTEaXgvLePAydmU/Blp06js4r7j93y1EfKve84oXWpo\"", "id": "UC-lHJZR3Gqxm24_Vd_AJ5Yw", "snippet": { "title": "PewDiePie", "description": "I make videos.", "publishedAt": "2010-04-29T10:54:00.000Z", "thumbnails": { "default": { "url": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AGF-l79FVckie4j9WT-4cEW6iu3gPd4GivQf_XNSWg=s88-c-k-c0xffffffff-no-rj-mo", "width": 88, "height": 88 }, "medium": { "url": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AGF-l79FVckie4j9WT-4cEW6iu3gPd4GivQf_XNSWg=s240-c-k-c0xffffffff-no-rj-mo", "width": 240, "height": 240 }, "high": { "url": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AGF-l79FVckie4j9WT-4cEW6iu3gPd4GivQf_XNSWg=s800-c-k-c0xffffffff-no-rj-mo", "width": 800, "height": 800 } }, "localized": { "title": "PewDiePie", "description": "I make videos." }, "country": "US" }, "statistics": { "viewCount": "24334379402", "commentCount": "0", "subscriberCount": "102000000", "hiddenSubscriberCount": false, "videoCount": "4054" } } ] }

Most of my app's users will be smaller musicians, likely with less than 10k youtube subscribers. Take my sister for example, this is a link to her youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe4Eogv2uGaKUe4x3VNrwsg.

Whenever trying to search for her Youtube channel with the API via https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?part=snippet,statistics&forUsername=Audrey_Chopin&key=[YOUR_API_KEY] (and variations such as replacing Audrey_Chopin with Audrey%20Chopin or Audrey+Chopin) yield no results: { "kind": "youtube#channelListResponse", "etag": "\"p4VTdlkQv3HQeTEaXgvLePAydmU/zJL80hJ0IwMo5wddECFapC8I6Q4\"", "pageInfo": { "totalResults": 0, "resultsPerPage": 5 }, "items": [] }.

Are smaller users not supposed to be returned from this endpoint? If so, is there any way I can implement users to search for their profile without forcing the user to do the OAuth process, i.e. signing into their Youtube account?

2
google-apiyoutubeyoutube-apiyoutube-data-api

2 Answers

0
votes

It seems that using the /search endpoint works better for smaller channels, though there is less information available in this endpoint (I am unable to get subscriber count and video count, which was included in the "statistics" part of the /channel endpoint).

So updating

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?part=snippet,statistics&forUsername=Audrey_Chopin&key=[YOUR_API_KEY]

to

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search?part=snippet&channelType=any&maxResults=50&order=relevance&q=Audrey%20Chopin&type=channel&key=[YOUR_API_KEY]

yielded smaller channels, though without as much data as when using the /channel endpoint.

Still curious, if anybody knows, why the /channel endpoint does not return smaller channels.

0
votes

Since you know the user's channel id, simply issue a query to the Channels endpoint on the URL:

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?part=...&id=$CHANNEL_ID&key=$APP_KEY,

and you'll obtain all public (i.e. non-private) info attached to the referenced channel -- without needing any further authentication. Of course you can specify the part parameter as you see fit.

On the other hand, please note that querying the Search.List endpoint for snippet part is much more costly than querying the Channels.List endpoint for both snippet and statistics parts: 100 vs. 5 quota points.