YouTube Description Analyzer
Paste a description to check the things that actually break it: whether your chapters meet YouTube’s formatting rules, whether the opening lines carry the topic, and whether a disclosure is present when one is needed. Every check is computed from the text you paste.
Paste a description above to analyse it
The analysis updates as you type. Nothing is uploaded or stored.
Validate a description against the rules that actually decide whether your chapters register, and check the opening lines and required disclosures.
What the analyzer validates
The analyzer checks the parts of a description that have verifiable rules: the length of the above-the-fold opening, whether the primary keyword appears in it, whether chapter timestamps are formatted in a way YouTube will accept, and whether links and disclosures are present.
It reads the text you paste, so nothing you have not typed into the box is assessed.
Chapter formatting rules YouTube enforces
Chapters are stricter than most creators realise, and a single mistake causes the whole set to be ignored rather than partially applied.
The rules are: the first timestamp must be 00:00, each chapter must be at least ten seconds long, there must be at least three chapters, and the timestamps must run in ascending order. Chapters also stop working if the first line is not 00:00 or if the timestamps are not the first thing on their lines.
- First stamp must be 00:00.
- At least three chapters.
- Each chapter at least ten seconds.
- Timestamps in ascending order, each at the start of its own line.
Opening line and disclosure checks
Only about the first 150 characters show before the viewer has to tap "show more". The analyzer measures that area separately and warns when the hook is buried or the keyword is missing from it.
It also checks for an affiliate or sponsorship disclosure, because both the FTC and YouTube require material connections to be disclosed clearly and near the relevant link.
Questions about this tool
Why did my chapters not show up on my video?
The usual causes are a first timestamp that is not 00:00, fewer than three chapters, a chapter shorter than ten seconds, or timestamps that do not ascend. YouTube ignores the entire set if any one of those is wrong.
How long can a YouTube description be?
YouTube allows up to 5,000 characters. That is a ceiling, not a goal. The part that matters to viewers is the roughly 150 characters shown before the fold.
Does the analyzer read my live video description automatically?
No. You paste the description text you want checked. To pull a public title from a live video, use the Video SEO Checker instead.