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This should be very simple (when you know the answer). From this question

I want to give the posted solution a try. My question is:

How to get the parameter value of a given URL using JavaScript regular expressions?

I have:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
I need: 
Ahg6qcgoay4
I tried:
http://www.youtube.com/watch\\?v=(w{11})
But: I suck... 
                @dfa: I might need that in the future, thanks for the link. I guess I should probably get this regexp right first :)
– OscarRyz
                Aug 15, 2009 at 0:35
                Checkout the javascript module get-video-id that will extract the Youtube id from any known Youtube url format (including embed strings). It doesn't use one monolithic regex, but it employs a few regex's to find the different patterns.
– radiovisual
                Apr 12, 2016 at 14:53
You almost had it, just need to escape special regex chars:
regex = /http\:\/\/www\.youtube\.com\/watch\?v=([\w-]{11})/;
url = 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4';
id = url.match(regex)[1]; // id = 'Ahg6qcgoay4'
Edit: Fix for regex by soupagain.
                Should probably also put in a test for if the match fails, such as var m = url.match(regex); id = (m && m.length > 1) ? m[1] : null;
– Tadmas
                Aug 14, 2009 at 22:55
                Don't know how to edit answers, but the above answer is incorrect, as it fails with video IDs containing the - dash character.  Therefore the regex should be:  /http\:\/\/www\.youtube\.com\/watch\?v=([\w-]{11})/
– soupagain
                Feb 11, 2010 at 8:57
Example on the url
var url = "http://www.youtube.com/watch?p=DB852818BF378DAC&v=1q-k-uN73Gk"
you can do a split as
var params = url.split("?")[1].split("&");
You will get array of strings with params as name value pairs with "=" as the delimiter.
                that is a original idea, +1 for that, but I recommend using HttpUtility.ParseQueryString if you can live with referencing System.Web.dll, and not reinvent the wheel
– user90843
                May 10, 2010 at 10:15
v is a query parameter, technically you need to consider cases ala: http://www.youtube.com/watch?p=DB852818BF378DAC&v=1q-k-uN73Gk
In .NET I would recommend to use System.Web.HttpUtility.ParseQueryString
HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(url)["v"];
And you don't even need to check the key, as it will return null if the key is not in the collection.
                Strictly speaking this should be var playlist = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(new Uri(url).Query)["v"];  because ParseQueryString is looking for a query string, not a whole URL.
– kingdango
                Jan 25, 2013 at 19:32
I use seperate custom functions which gets all URL Parameters and URL parts .
For URL parameters, (which is the final part of an URI String, http://domain.tld/urlpart/?x=a&y=b 
    function getUrlVars() {
    var vars = {};
    var parts = window.location.href.replace(/[?&]+([^=&]+)=([^&]*)/gi, function(m,key,value) {
        vars[key] = value;
    return vars;
The above function will return an array consisting of url variables.
For URL Parts or functions, (which is http://domain.tld/urlpart/?x=a&y=b
I use a simple uri split,
function getUrlParams() { 
    var vars = {};
    var parts = window.location.href.split('/' );
    return parts;
You can even combine them both to be able to use with a single call in a page or in javascript.