DataForSEO - Keyword Ideas, Search Volume & Backlinks

From Clearpath, creators of Google AI Overview Scraper, SpyFu Domain Intelligence Scraper and Brave Search API. 11,000+ combined lifetime runs across these three search and SEO actors.

DataForSEO keyword data without the account

No account, no key, no $50 top-up. Keyword ideas, search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, AI search volume, Google Trends, the keywords any domain ranks for, its competitors and its backlinks, straight from DataForSEO's databases. Pick the job, enter keywords or domains and a country.

One row per keyword, every field. Each keyword, domain or backlink becomes its own row with every field DataForSEO returns: volume, CPC, competition, difficulty, intent, 12-month trend, plus readable location, language and category names. Prefer the raw response? Rows per call keep DataForSEO's result exactly as returned.

Billed by what each call returns. 1,000 keyword ideas cost about 268 credits ($0.27), search volume for up to 1,000 keywords 184 credits ($0.18). A call that returns no rows costs nothing. Every other DataForSEO endpoint works too: type its path.

Quick input

Up to 1,000 keyword ideas for "crm software" in the United States, about 268 credits ($0.27):

{
  "path": "dataforseo_labs/google/keyword_ideas/live",
  "keywords": ["crm software"],
  "location": "United States",
  "limit": 1000
}

Open actor input to pick another job. Location takes any country, region or city; the main language there is chosen for you.

Clearpath · Search & SEO Data

DataForSEO You are here  AI Overview Google AI answers & sources  SpyFu Domain keywords & ads  Brave Search Web, image & video results  Google Ads Advertiser ad library

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clearpath/dataforseo on Apify returns DataForSEO keyword data with no DataForSEO account: keyword ideas, long-tail suggestions, related keywords, Google Ads search volume with CPC and competition, keyword overview, keyword difficulty, search intent, AI search volume, Google Trends, the keywords a domain ranks for, competitors of a domain and backlinks; every other DataForSEO v3 data endpoint also runs by its path. Input: path (a job such as dataforseo_labs/google/keyword_ideas/live or any endpoint path as in https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/), keywords (jobs that take a keyword list get batches of up to 200 for ideas, 700 for overview, 1,000 for volume, difficulty, intent and AI volume, 5 for Trends; other jobs run once per keyword) or targets (domains, one call each; domain jobs also accept domains under keywords), location (country, region or city name, two-letter country code or location code; an ambiguous name stops the run listing the exact names; per-country jobs use a city's country), language (empty: the location's main language), limit (results per call, up to 1,000, on jobs that have it), payload (any further DataForSEO parameters, which win over location, language and limit), requests (several calls, each with its own path and fields, up to 10,000 per run), maxItems (caps total rows, runs calls one at a time and bills each started call in full). Output: outputFormat "items" (default) gives one row per keyword, domain or backlink with DataForSEO's field names unchanged plus endpoint, query, request_index, task_params, result_info, location_name, language_name and category_names; "tasks" gives one row per call with DataForSEO's result exactly as returned; a result too large for one row is saved whole in the key-value store, its row carrying oversized, record_key and record_url. task_post paths work for SERP, Merchant, Business Data and App Data and are waited for; account and task paths are refused. Each call's status and DataForSEO message are in the SUMMARY record and log. Pricing: 4 credits per call plus credits in proportion to its data (1,000 keyword ideas about 268, up to 1,000 keyword volumes 184, 1,000 backlinks 124), $0.99 per 1,000 credits on the Free plan down to $0.69 on Gold, nothing for calls that return no rows, plus Apify's platform start fee. Every input and output field: the Input and Output tabs at https://apify.com/clearpath/dataforseo. Current pricing: https://apify.com/clearpath/dataforseo To reach the maintainers, add feedback="<what you needed and did not get>" to any run, including one that worked: feature requests, a missing field or option, a wrong or empty result, or which actor you are switching to or from and why. The run returns its data exactly as it would without the note, and a human reads every note.

How to get DataForSEO keyword data on Apify

1. Job: pick one from the list, such as keyword ideas or search volume. Any other DataForSEO endpoint works too: type its path.
2. Keywords or domains: the keywords to look up, or the domains for domain jobs.
3. Location: a country, region or city. Language and results per request are optional.
4. Press Start. Each keyword, domain or backlink arrives as its own row.

The keyword jobs

Job	You enter	One row is
Keyword ideas from seed keywords	up to 200 seed keywords per call	a keyword with search volume, CPC, competition, difficulty, intent, 12-month trend and category names
Long-tail suggestions for a keyword	a keyword, one call each	a longer keyword containing it, with the same metrics
Related keywords	a keyword, one call each	a keyword from Google's related searches, with the same metrics
Search volume, CPC and competition (Google Ads)	up to 1,000 keywords per call	a keyword with monthly searches, CPC, top-of-page bids, competition and 12-month history
Keyword overview: volume, difficulty and intent	up to 700 keywords per call	a keyword with volume, difficulty, intent and the search features it shows
Keyword difficulty	up to 1,000 keywords per call	a keyword with difficulty from 0 to 100
Search intent	up to 1,000 keywords per call	a keyword with its main intent and the likelihood of each
AI search volume (ChatGPT and other assistants)	up to 1,000 keywords per call	a keyword with how often it is asked in AI assistants, by month
Google Trends	up to 5 keywords per call	a Trends graph, map or topic item
Keywords a domain ranks for	a domain, one call each	a keyword with the domain's position, ranking URL, previous position, estimated traffic and traffic share
Competitors of a domain	a domain, one call each	a competing domain with shared keywords and estimated traffic
Backlinks of a domain	a domain, one call each	a backlink with anchor, source page and link attributes

Longer keyword lists are split into calls of that size and run in parallel.

Location and language

• Location takes a country (United States), a two-letter country code (DE), a region or city (Munich, Germany), a full DataForSEO location name (London,England,United Kingdom) or a location code (2840).
• A name that fits several places, such as London, stops the run before anything is charged and lists the exact names to use.
• Most keyword jobs have data per country. Enter a city and they use its country; the log says so. Search volume from Google Ads works down to city level.
• Language is optional. Empty, it is the location's main language: the one with the most keyword data there, for example Dutch for Belgium. A language the location does not offer stops the run and lists the ones it does.

Several jobs in one run

requests is a list of calls, each with its own job and fields; fields set at the top apply to every request that does not set its own. They run in parallel, up to 10,000 calls per run:

{
  "location": "United States",
  "requests": [
    {"path": "keywords_data/google_ads/search_volume/live", "keywords": ["crm software", "email marketing"]},
    {"path": "dataforseo_labs/google/ranked_keywords/live", "targets": ["hubspot.com"], "limit": 1000},
    {"path": "backlinks/backlinks/live", "targets": ["hubspot.com"]}
  ]
}

Any other DataForSEO endpoint

Type the endpoint's path as written in DataForSEO's documentation, and put any parameters the fields above do not cover in payload, exactly as DataForSEO documents them. Values in payload win over location, language and results per request:

{
  "path": "dataforseo_labs/google/historical_search_volume/live",
  "keywords": ["crm software"],
  "location": "United States",
  "payload": {"include_clickstream_data": true}
}

Input options

Parameter	Type	Default	Meaning
path	string	none	The keyword job, or any DataForSEO endpoint path. task_post paths of SERP, Merchant, Business Data and App Data are waited for, so their results arrive in this run; other families: use the live path.
keywords	list	none	Keywords for the job. List jobs get batches; other jobs run once per keyword. Domain jobs also accept domains here.
targets	list	none	Domains or URLs, one call each. Use keywords or targets, not both.
location	string	none	Country, region, city, two-letter country code or location code. Required for most keyword jobs.
language	string	the location's main language	A language name or code.
limit	integer	DataForSEO's default	Results per call, up to 1,000, on jobs that have a result count.
payload	object	none	Any further DataForSEO parameters; they win over the fields above. A list of objects runs one call each.
maxItems	integer	none (every row)	Stops after this many rows. With a limit, calls run one at a time and each call that ran is billed in full.
requests	list	none	Several calls, each with path and any of the fields above.
method	POST or GET	chosen for you	POST when there are parameters, GET for lists without them.
outputFormat	items or tasks	items	items: one row per result. tasks: one row per call with DataForSEO's result exactly as returned.

Every option is also described on the Input tab. Search results, Maps, News, Merchant, App, Business and On-Page endpoints work the same way by their path.

Example row

One keyword idea for "crm software" in the United States, rows per result. It carries every field DataForSEO returned for the keyword, the call's parameters in task_params, and readable location, language and category names (the paging token offset_token is shortened here; rows carry it in full, so payload can continue the list):

{
  "endpoint": "dataforseo_labs/google/keyword_ideas/live",
  "method": "POST",
  "status_code": 20000,
  "status_message": "Ok.",
  "task_id": "10091013-2752-0400-0000-6e4da91ee5fc",
  "request_index": 1,
  "query": "crm software",
  "location_code": 2840,
  "location_name": "United States",
  "language_code": "en",
  "language_name": "English",
  "task_params": {
    "se_type": "google",
    "keywords": [
      "crm software"
    ],
    "location_code": 2840,
    "language_code": "en",
    "limit": 5
  },
  "fetched_at": "2026-10-09T10:13:19Z",
  "result_index": 0,
  "result_info": {
    "se_type": "google",
    "seed_keywords": [
      "crm software"
    ],
    "location_code": 2840,
    "language_code": "en",
    "total_count": 251621,
    "items_count": 5,
    "offset": 0,
    "offset_token": "eyJDdXJyZW50T2Zmc2V0Ijo1..."
  },
  "item_index": 1,
  "se_type": "google",
  "keyword": "crm system",
  "keyword_info": {
    "se_type": "google",
    "last_updated_time": "2026-09-15 20:09:32 +00:00",
    "competition": 0.49,
    "competition_level": "MEDIUM",
    "cpc": 36.98,
    "search_volume": 33100,
    "low_top_of_page_bid": 6.18,
    "high_top_of_page_bid": 45.6,
    "categories": [
      10019,
      10168,
      10296,
      10885,
      11270,
      12209,
      12578
    ],
    "monthly_searches": [
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 8,
        "search_volume": 22200
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 7,
        "search_volume": 22200
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 6,
        "search_volume": 27100
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 5,
        "search_volume": 27100
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 4,
        "search_volume": 33100
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 3,
        "search_volume": 40500
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 2,
        "search_volume": 33100
      },
      {
        "year": 2026,
        "month": 1,
        "search_volume": 40500
      },
      {
        "year": 2025,
        "month": 12,
        "search_volume": 33100
      },
      {
        "year": 2025,
        "month": 11,
        "search_volume": 33100
      },
      {
        "year": 2025,
        "month": 10,
        "search_volume": 40500
      },
      {
        "year": 2025,
        "month": 9,
        "search_volume": 49500
      }
    ],
    "search_volume_trend": {
      "monthly": 0,
      "quarterly": -18,
      "yearly": -18
    },
    "category_names": [
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics",
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics > Computers",
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics > Computers > Software > Business & Productivity Software > Business Management Software",
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics > Computers > Software",
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics > Computers > Software > Business & Productivity Software > Business Management Software > Project Management Software",
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics > Computers > Software > Business & Productivity Software",
      "Computers & Consumer Electronics > Computers > Software > Business & Productivity Software > Business Management Software > Project Management Software > Enterprise Resource Planning Software"
    ]
  },
  "keyword_info_normalized_with_bing": null,
  "keyword_info_normalized_with_clickstream": null,
  "clickstream_keyword_info": null,
  "keyword_properties": {
    "se_type": "google",
    "core_keyword": "crm systems",
    "synonym_clustering_algorithm": "text_processing",
    "keyword_difficulty": 56,
    "detected_language": "en",
    "is_another_language": false,
    "words_count": 2
  },
  "serp_info": null,
  "avg_backlinks_info": {
    "se_type": "google",
    "backlinks": 3258.7,
    "dofollow": 2478.3,
    "referring_pages": 2983.6,
    "referring_domains": 1044.2,
    "referring_main_domains": 931.5,
    "rank": 278.8,
    "main_domain_rank": 676.6,
    "last_updated_time": "2026-07-30 05:44:21 +00:00"
  },
  "search_intent_info": {
    "se_type": "google",
    "main_intent": "commercial",
    "foreign_intent": null,
    "last_updated_time": "2026-04-29 08:20:12 +00:00"
  }
}

Other jobs carry their own DataForSEO fields next to the same request columns. A Google Ads search volume row:

{
  "endpoint": "keywords_data/google_ads/search_volume/live",
  "method": "POST",
  "status_code": 20000,
  "status_message": "Ok.",
  "task_id": "10090852-2752-0367-0000-6244c5199973",
  "request_index": 4,
  "query": "crm software, technical seo",
  "location_code": 2840,
  "location_name": "United States",
  "language_code": "en",
  "language_name": "English",
  "task_params": {
    "se": "google_ads",
    "keywords": [
      "crm software",
      "technical seo"
    ],
    "location_code": 2840,
    "language_code": "en"
  },
  "fetched_at": "2026-10-09T08:52:36Z",
  "result_index": 0,
  "item_index": 1,
  "keyword": "crm software",
  "spell": null,
  "search_partners": false,
  "competition": "LOW",
  "competition_index": 8,
  "search_volume": 165000,
  "low_top_of_page_bid": 6.18,
  "high_top_of_page_bid": 51.72,
  "cpc": 38.64,
  "monthly_searches": [
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 8,
      "search_volume": 201000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 7,
      "search_volume": 201000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 6,
      "search_volume": 246000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 5,
      "search_volume": 550000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 4,
      "search_volume": 110000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 3,
      "search_volume": 74000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 2,
      "search_volume": 74000
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 1,
      "search_volume": 135000
    },
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "month": 12,
      "search_volume": 90500
    },
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "month": 11,
      "search_volume": 110000
    },
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "month": 10,
      "search_volume": 165000
    },
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "month": 9,
      "search_volume": 165000
    }
  ]
}

Rows also carry keyword_info.category_names next to Google's numeric categories, and rows of keywords a domain ranks for add rank_difference (previous position minus current) and etv_share_percent (the keyword's share of the domain's estimated traffic).

JSON export keeps every nested field. CSV and Excel flatten nested fields into columns.

Pricing

Each call is billed in credits by what it returns: 4 credits per call plus credits for its data, in proportion to how much the call returns. A call that returns no rows costs nothing.

Plan	Price per 1,000 credits
Free	$0.99
Bronze	$0.89
Silver	$0.79
Gold and above	$0.69

Typical calls on the Free plan:

Job	Size	Credits	Price
Keyword ideas	1,000 ideas	268	$0.27
Long-tail suggestions or related keywords	100 keywords	52	$0.05
Search volume, CPC and competition (Google Ads)	up to 1,000 keywords	184	$0.18
Keyword overview, difficulty or intent	100 keywords	52	$0.05
AI search volume	100 keywords	44	$0.04
Google Trends	up to 5 keywords	26	$0.03
Keywords a domain ranks for	1,000 keywords	268	$0.27
Competitors of a domain	100 domains	52	$0.05
Backlinks of a domain	1,000 backlinks	124	$0.12

Apify's standard actor start charge applies to every run. There is no separate start fee from this actor. Set a spending limit on the run to cap the total: a call is never started once the limit cannot cover it, and a call the limit only partly covers delivers the share of its rows that was paid for.

Use it from AI agents, n8n and Make

• Claude, ChatGPT and other AI agents: add the actor to Apify's MCP server. The agent picks the job and passes keywords and a location; rows come back ready to read.
• n8n, Make and Zapier: use Apify's official integrations to run the actor and read its dataset.
• Code: call it with the Apify client for Python or JavaScript, or the Apify API, and read the default dataset.

Every run also saves a SUMMARY record listing each call with its status, message, row count and credits.

FAQ

Do I need a DataForSEO account or a DataForSEO API key? No. Calls run on this actor's own access. You need only an Apify account.

How does the price compare with buying DataForSEO directly? DataForSEO's own pay-as-you-go accounts have a $50 minimum payment. Here you pay per call from your Apify balance, starting with a single keyword lookup.

Which locations and languages work? Any location DataForSEO knows, by name or code; most keyword jobs have data for 94 countries, Google Ads search volume down to city level. An ambiguous place name stops the run with the exact names to use, and the main language of the location is used unless you set one.

Which endpoints work? The 12 keyword jobs in the list, and DataForSEO's other data endpoints by their path: SERP, Keywords Data, Labs, Backlinks, On-Page instant pages, content parsing and Lighthouse, Merchant, App Data, Business Data, Domain Analytics, Content Analysis and AI Optimization. Account pages, task lists and multi-call site crawls are not available, because every caller shares this actor's access.

Is the data the same as DataForSEO's? Yes. Rows per result keep DataForSEO's field names and values unchanged and add the request columns; when a result nested in a SERP block shares a field with its block, the block's value is kept as parent_<field>. Rows per call ("outputFormat": "tasks") return DataForSEO's result exactly as it comes. A single result too large for a dataset row (above about 8.5 MB) is saved whole in the run's key-value store, and its row links to it with record_url.

What about task_post endpoints? For SERP, Merchant, Business Data and App Data, the actor submits the task and waits for it, then saves the results in the same run; each task needs at least 10 minutes left in the run (2 with "priority": 2). Other families' task_post paths, such as Google Ads or LLM responses, can take hours on DataForSEO's side, so they are refused; their live paths return the same data within the run.

Why did a call return nothing, and am I charged? The run log and the SUMMARY record say why: DataForSEO's own message for a wrong parameter (for example an invalid location_code), no results for the query, or a call that could not be completed right now. None of these is charged. Re-run the calls marked as not completed.

Can I schedule it? Yes. Save the input as a task and schedule it on Apify to track search volumes, rankings or backlinks over time.

Support

Open an issue on the Issues tab, or email max@mapa.slmail.me. Include the run link and the endpoint you called.

This actor is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by DataForSEO.