# China Hot Search in English: Weibo, Douyin, Baidu, Zhihu (`bossless/china-hot-search`) Actor

China's trending topics in one run, in English: the Weibo hot search (微博热搜), Douyin hot list (抖音热榜), Baidu hot search (百度热搜), Zhihu hot list (知乎热榜) and Bilibili trending searches (B站热搜), each with an English title, a short summary, category and sentiment. No login. Pay per topic.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/bossless/china-hot-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Alexander Daskalov](https://apify.com/bossless) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, News, AI
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.20 / 1,000 topic in englishes

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## China Hot Search in English: Weibo, Douyin, Baidu, Zhihu & Bilibili Trends

**China Hot Search gets you what China is talking about right now, in English.** It fetches five boards in one run:

- the **Weibo hot search (微博热搜)**;
- the **Douyin hot list (抖音热榜)**;
- the **Baidu hot search (百度热搜)**;
- the **Zhihu hot list (知乎热榜)**;
- **Bilibili trending searches (B站热搜)**.

For each topic it gives you the rank, the board's heat score and a link, plus an **English title, a short English summary, a category and a sentiment**. No login, no Chinese needed.

Use it for China market and trend research, news and media monitoring, brand and PR watch, investor and analyst briefings, content ideas, and AI agents that need to know what's trending in China today.

- 🔥 **Five boards in one run**, each a live snapshot, so you can schedule it hourly or daily to build a trend history.
- 🌏 **English for every topic:** a translated title, what the topic is about, one of 13 categories, and positive/neutral/negative sentiment.
- 🧾 **Grounded summaries.** The summary only uses the board's own text: Baidu adds a news summary to each topic and Zhihu an excerpt, so those are the richest. Weibo, Douyin and Bilibili give only the topic itself, so their summaries explain the title and nothing more.
- 💸 **Raw boards are cheap too:** turn the English off and you get the Chinese boards at $0.50 per 1,000 topics.

### What boards does it cover?

| Board | What it is | Topics | Extra text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weibo 微博热搜 | Realtime hot search on China's Twitter-like network | ~50 | label such as 热 (hot) or 新 (new) |
| Douyin 抖音热榜 | The hot list of China's TikTok | ~50 | cover image |
| Baidu 百度热搜 | Realtime hot search of China's biggest search engine | 50 | **news summary** for every topic |
| Zhihu 知乎热榜 | Hot questions on China's Quora-like Q\&A site | ~30 | **question excerpt** |
| Bilibili B站热搜 | Trending searches on China's YouTube-like video site | 50 | none |

Ads on the Weibo board are skipped. Each topic links to the board's own page or search for it.

### How much does it cost?

You pay per topic, and there's no monthly fee.

| Event | Price (FREE/BRONZE) | Lower on paid plans |
|---|---|---|
| Topic in English (title, summary, category, sentiment) | **$0.0025** per topic ($2.50 per 1,000) | down to $0.0022 |
| Topic, Chinese only (English turned off) | **$0.0005** per topic ($0.50 per 1,000) | down to $0.0004 |
| Actor start | $0.00005 per run | — |

The example input (10 topics from each of the five boards, in English) costs **$0.125 a run**. A daily briefing of the top 20 from every board costs about $0.25 a day; the top 10 every hour costs about $3 a day.

Set a **maximum cost per run** and the run stops at it. A topic the AI declines to explain is saved without the English fields and charged as a Chinese-only topic.

**Free plan:** the English layer runs on paid AI infrastructure, so free-plan runs include 3 English topics as a trial. The rest come out Chinese-only, and that's how they're charged.

### How fast is it?

All five boards are fetched in parallel. The example run (50 topics in English) took **44 seconds** on 256 MB of memory, and a Chinese-only run of two boards took 7 seconds.

### How to use China Hot Search

1. Click **Try for free**. The example input fetches the top 10 of every board, in English.
2. Pick the **Hot boards** you want and the **Topics per board** (up to 50).
3. Keep **English title, summary, category and sentiment** on, or turn it off for the raw Chinese boards.
4. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or open the **Topics in English** view.
5. To build a trend history, add a **Schedule** (for example every hour). Each run is a timestamped snapshot.

#### Input example

```json
{
  "sources": ["weibo", "douyin", "baidu", "zhihu", "bilibili"],
  "maxTopicsPerSource": 10,
  "englishSummary": true
}
```

### Output

One record per topic. This is real output from the example run on 14 October 2026:

```json
{
  "type": "topic",
  "source": "baidu",
  "rank": 1,
  "title": "机器狗第1次进哀牢山就拍到冥界之花",
  "heat": 7809043,
  "label": null,
  "context": "近日，《科考中国》开展云南哀牢山生物多样性野外综合科考，具身智能机器狗首次参与本次科考。机器狗拍到每年仅约40天露出地表的“冥界之花”水晶兰，还深入西黑冠长臂猿栖息地，帮助科研人员将观测位置推进约20米。",
  "url": "https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%E6%9C%BA%E5%99%A8%E7%8B%97%E7%AC%AC1%E6%AC%A1%E8%BF%9B%E5%93%80%E7%89%A2%E5%B1%B1%E5%B0%B1%E6%8B%8D%E5%88%B0%E5%86%A5%E7%95%8C%E4%B9%8B%E8%8A%B1",
  "imageUrl": "https://fyb-2.cdn.bcebos.com/hotboard_image/65446cebe6b3a6fe165c4de502c9732a",
  "titleEn": "Robot dog captures 'Ghost Flower' on its first trip to Ailao Mountain",
  "summaryEn": "A robotic dog participating in a biodiversity survey in Ailao Mountain successfully photographed the rare 'Ghost Flower' and assisted researchers in reaching deep into primate habitats.",
  "category": "technology",
  "sentiment": "positive",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-13T22:18:51+00:00"
}
```

```json
{"source": "douyin", "rank": 2, "title": "欧冠加拉塔萨雷vs巴萨", "titleEn": "Champions League: Galatasaray vs. Barcelona",
 "summaryEn": "This topic covers the Champions League football match between Galatasaray and Barcelona.",
 "category": "sports", "sentiment": "neutral", "heat": 11548676, "url": "https://www.douyin.com/hot/2693238"}
```

Categories: politics, society, international, business, technology, entertainment, sports, gaming, anime, lifestyle, health, education, other. Heat scores are each board's own number, so compare them within a board, not across boards.

### Ready-made tasks

Open one, adjust it, and run or schedule it:

- [Weibo Hot Search (微博热搜) in English](https://apify.com/bossless/china-hot-search/examples/weibo-hot-search-english)
- [Douyin Hot List (抖音热榜) in English](https://apify.com/bossless/china-hot-search/examples/douyin-hot-search-english)
- [Baidu Hot Search (百度热搜) in English](https://apify.com/bossless/china-hot-search/examples/baidu-hot-search-english)
- [China Trending Daily Briefing: all five boards](https://apify.com/bossless/china-hot-search/examples/china-trending-daily-briefing)

### Use it with AI agents (MCP)

```
https://mcp.apify.com?tools=bossless/china-hot-search
```

Ask your assistant *"what's trending in China today?"* or *"summarise the Weibo and Douyin hot lists in English"*, and it runs this actor and reads back the topics. Keep agent runs small (for example `maxTopicsPerSource: 10`) so they finish in under a minute.

### Use the API from code

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/bossless~china-hot-search/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"sources": ["weibo", "baidu"], "maxTopicsPerSource": 10}'
```

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("bossless/china-hot-search").call(run_input={"sources": ["douyin", "zhihu"], "maxTopicsPerSource": 20})
for t in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(t["source"], t["rank"], t["titleEn"] or t["title"])
```

### FAQ

**Do I need a Weibo, Douyin or Baidu account, or a proxy?** No. The boards are public, and the actor handles the requests.

**How accurate are the English summaries?** The AI is told to use only the topic and the board's own text, and never to add facts, names, numbers or dates. Baidu and Zhihu topics come with a news summary or an excerpt, so their summaries say the most. Weibo, Douyin and Bilibili only show the topic itself, so their summaries explain the title. Rank, heat, links and timestamps come straight from the boards, not from the AI.

**Does it cover sensitive or political topics?** It returns whatever is on the boards. If the AI declines to explain a topic, the topic is still saved (without the English fields) and charged at the Chinese-only price.

**Can I track the boards over time?** Yes. Schedule it (for example hourly). Every record has `scrapedAt`, so the runs together form a trend history.

**What happens if a board is down or blocked?** The run retries it on new IP addresses, and the other boards are still delivered. A run fails only if every board you selected was blocked.

**Is this an official Weibo, Douyin, Baidu, Zhihu or Bilibili product?** No. This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these platforms.

**Is it legal?** It reads publicly visible trending lists. You are responsible for how you use the data and for respecting the platforms' terms.

### More China data tools

- [Weibo Scraper (微博)](https://apify.com/bossless/weibo-scraper): hot search, profiles, post search and timelines, with optional AI tags.
- [Zhihu Scraper (知乎)](https://apify.com/bossless/zhihu-scraper): hot list, hot searches, suggestions and full-text column articles.
- [Bilibili Scraper (B站 / 哔哩哔哩)](https://apify.com/bossless/bilibili-scraper): videos, danmaku, comments, trending and creators, with an AI danmaku digest.
- [Chinese Video Transcriber](https://apify.com/bossless/chinese-video-transcriber): Bilibili videos to text, English subtitles and SRT.

***

#### 中国热搜榜英文版（微博热搜 / 抖音热榜 / 百度热搜 / 知乎热榜 / B站热搜）

一次获取微博热搜、抖音热榜、百度热搜、知乎热榜和 B站热搜，每个话题附排名、热度和链接，并由 AI 生成英文标题、英文摘要、分类和情感倾向。无需登录，可定时运行，按话题计费。

# Actor input Schema

## `sources` (type: `array`):

Which boards to fetch. Each is a live snapshot of the board right now.

## `maxTopicsPerSource` (type: `integer`):

Top N topics from each board (boards hold about 30–50).

## `englishSummary` (type: `boolean`):

Translate each topic and explain it in English, with a category and sentiment. The summary only uses the board's own text (Baidu adds a news summary, Zhihu an excerpt). Turn off for the raw Chinese boards at the lower per-topic price.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "sources": [
    "weibo",
    "douyin",
    "baidu",
    "zhihu",
    "bilibili"
  ],
  "maxTopicsPerSource": 10,
  "englishSummary": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `topics` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "sources": [
        "weibo",
        "douyin",
        "baidu",
        "zhihu",
        "bilibili"
    ],
    "maxTopicsPerSource": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("bossless/china-hot-search").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "sources": [
        "weibo",
        "douyin",
        "baidu",
        "zhihu",
        "bilibili",
    ],
    "maxTopicsPerSource": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("bossless/china-hot-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "sources": [
    "weibo",
    "douyin",
    "baidu",
    "zhihu",
    "bilibili"
  ],
  "maxTopicsPerSource": 10
}' |
apify call bossless/china-hot-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,bossless/china-hot-search"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/ydgD1mqGiptciNiqa/builds/NAKEGVeAfCeSelq5z/openapi.json