Taobao Keyword Suggestions Scraper - 淘宝 Autocomplete

Give it Chinese seed terms and get Taobao's own autocomplete suggestions back as rows: up to 100 per query, in the order Taobao ranks them, with the seed and the parent query on every row. Turn expansion on and it re-asks about each suggestion it found, which is the only way to go deeper, because Taobao's suggestion list has no pages.

The honest limits, up front. The index is Chinese: 蓝牙耳机 returns 100 suggestions and "bluetooth earphones" returns none, so this only pays off if your seeds are in Chinese. And there is no search volume here. Taobao publishes a demand count on one narrower list, it answers for roughly half of head terms and almost no long-tail ones, and demandCount is null everywhere else.

Input	Chinese seed keywords
Output	One row per unique keyword: the suggestion, its rank, the parent query, the seed and the depth, plus a demand count and category ids where Taobao gives them
Ceiling	100 suggestions per query, 100,000 keywords per run
Account needed	None
Price	$0.085 per 1,000 keywords, flat on every plan. The free plan's $5 a month covers about 58,000

🔍 What Taobao Keyword Suggestions Scraper does

At depth 0 it asks Taobao about your seeds and nothing else, which gives you up to 100 keywords per seed. Short, broad seeds return the most.

At depth 1 it takes everything that came back and asks about each of those too, which is roughly a hundredfold more keywords. Depth 2 does it again and gets very large very quickly, which is why Maximum keywords is a hard cap across the whole run and worth setting deliberately.

A keyword that shows up under two different parents is returned once and billed once. The run keeps track of what it has already seen, so you never pay for the same term twice.

Two optional extras ride alongside. includeDemandData adds one request per seed against Taobao's Tmall list, the only variant carrying a numeric demand count, a category id and a relevance score. includeRefinementTags attaches Taobao's own attribute and brand vocabulary for the parent query: the style, material and brand facets with their "hot" markers.

📋 What data you get from each Taobao keyword

What you get	Field
The suggestion, exactly as Taobao returns it	keyword
The query that produced it, and the seed the chain started from	parentQuery, seedKeyword
How deep it was found, and its place in Taobao's list	depth, rank
Which list it came from	source
Demand count, relevance score and category ids, from the Tmall list only	demandCount, relevanceScore, categoryIds
Taobao's style, material and brand facets for the parent query, when you ask for them	refinementTags
When it was read	scrapedAt

▶️ How to scrape Taobao keyword suggestions

1. Open Taobao Keyword Suggestions Scraper and click Try for free.
2. Put your Chinese seeds into Seed keywords, one per line. Replace the examples.
3. Leave Expansion depth at 0 for a first run. You will get up to 100 keywords per seed.
4. Set Maximum keywords to something you are happy to pay for before raising the depth.
5. Click Start, then download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel.

Run it with no seeds and you get one labelled sample row, free.

💰 How much does it cost to scrape Taobao keyword suggestions?

$0.085 per 1,000 keywords. Flat on every Apify plan, no volume tiers. On the free plan, the $5 Apify gives you each month covers about 58,000 keywords.

One billed keyword per unique term. A term that appears under two parents is billed once, and the sample row and diagnostic rows are not billed. If you set a maximum cost for the run, it stops there.

Depth is the number to watch, not the seed count. Ten seeds at depth 0 is at most 1,000 keywords. The same ten at depth 1 is a far bigger run, which is what Maximum keywords is there to bound.

📥 What you give it

{
  "seedKeywords": ["蓝牙耳机", "连衣裙"],
  "expansionDepth": 0,
  "maxKeywords": 1000,
  "includeDemandData": true,
  "includeRefinementTags": false
}

Field	Default	What it is
seedKeywords	none	Terms to expand, one per line, in Chinese. Each seed returns up to 100 suggestions.
expansionDepth	0	0 asks only about your seeds. 1 also asks about every suggestion that came back. 2 goes one level deeper again.
maxKeywords	1000	Hard cap on unique keywords across the whole run, 1 to 100,000.
includeDemandData	true	One extra request per seed for the Tmall demand count, category ids and relevance score. Only asked for your seeds, never for expanded keywords.
includeRefinementTags	false	Adds Taobao's refinement vocabulary for the parent query. Off because it repeats the same list on every row of a query.
maxConcurrency	15	Under Advanced. How many suggestion requests run at once, 1 to 30.
proxyConfiguration	none	Optional. Leave it alone unless you want the run to go out through a network of your own.

The seeds have no default on purpose, so an empty API call writes one sample row rather than starting a run you did not ask for.

📤 What you get back

A real row from a run on 20 September 2026:

{
  "keyword": "连衣裙女夏",
  "parentQuery": "连衣裙",
  "seedKeyword": "连衣裙",
  "depth": 0,
  "rank": 1,
  "source": "suggest",
  "demandCount": null,
  "relevanceScore": null,
  "categoryIds": [],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-20T19:22:10.804Z"
}

Field	How to read it
parentQuery	The query that produced this keyword. At depth 0 it is the seed itself.
seedKeyword	The root seed the chain started from, so you can group a large expansion back to its origin.
rank	Where it sat in Taobao's list, 1 to 100. Taobao's own ordering, not a score we computed.
source	suggest for the main list, tmall-b2c for the narrower one that carries demand data.
demandCount, relevanceScore	Only on tmall-b2c rows. null on everything else, which is most rows.
categoryIds	Also only on tmall-b2c rows. Empty on a suggest row, as above.
refinementTags	Only when you asked for them. Present on about 80% of short head terms and 13% of expanded long-tail terms.

🧾 Reading the output

Row	How to spot it	Billed
A keyword	It has a keyword and no _sample or _diagnostic key	yes
The sample row	_sample: true, only when no seed was given	no
A diagnostic	_diagnostic: true and an errorCode	no

Keyword rows carry no charged flag; the sample and diagnostic rows carry charged: false. The sample row has a keyword too, so to keep only real keywords, drop every row with _sample or _diagnostic.

Code	What it means
NO_SUGGESTIONS	Taobao had nothing for that query. Usually an English seed, or one that is too long or too specific.
QUERY_FAILED	That query could not be read. The rest of the run carries on.

If every request in a run fails, the run ends as FAILED rather than reporting a quiet success with an empty dataset.

💡 What people use it for

• Finding the Chinese phrasing for a product before writing listings or ads, where the obvious translation is not what shoppers actually type.
• Building a long-tail keyword set for one category by seeding a head term and expanding once.
• Reading rank as Taobao's own ordering to see which variants it puts first.
• Pulling categoryIds off the Tmall rows to work out which category a term belongs to.

From a Chinese head term to wholesale prices, in three runs:

1. Run this on a seed like 蓝牙耳机 at depth 0 and keep the top keyword values by rank.
2. Paste them into Search terms in 1688 Wholesale Scraper to see what each variant costs wholesale, ladder included.
3. Put the offerId of the offers you like into 1688 Reviews Scraper and read what buyers wrote.

🚧 What it does not do

• No search volume. demandCount comes only from the narrower Tmall list and is null on most rows. Do not plan a volume analysis around it.
• English seeds return almost nothing. The index is Chinese and there is no translation step.
• Keywords, not products. No prices, no images, no listings. If prices are what you need, a keyword feed is the wrong purchase however cheap it is.
• No history. Every row is a snapshot of what Taobao suggested at that moment.
• No pagination. 100 per query is Taobao's ceiling, so depth is the only way deeper.
• categoryIds is sparse. On one 5,000-row run it was filled on about 0.5% of rows, because the demand list is only asked for your seeds.
• A big run can come back short. A query Taobao does not answer becomes an uncharged QUERY_FAILED row. Only delivered keywords are billed.
• It is not an official Taobao tool. Dami's Studio is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Taobao or Alibaba, or by any other company named on this page.

🧭 Which Taobao scraper do you need?

If you want	Use
The Chinese words shoppers type into Taobao	This one
Retail products in a Taobao category	Taobao Category Products Scraper
Whatever Taobao's homepage feed is recommending right now	Taobao Product Feed Scraper
1688 offers by search term: unit price, MOQ and the quantity price ladder	1688 Wholesale Scraper
The same autocomplete idea for Google, YouTube or Amazon search boxes	Keyword Autocomplete Scraper

❓ Questions people ask

Do I need a Taobao account?

No. Nothing to register and nothing to paste.

Can I seed Taobao suggestions in English?

You can, but Taobao will mostly return nothing and you will get NO_SUGGESTIONS rows. Translate your seeds first.

How many keywords will one seed give me?

Up to 100 at depth 0. Broad terms hit that ceiling, narrow ones return far fewer.

Why is demandCount null on nearly every row?

Because it exists only on Taobao's Tmall list, that list answers for roughly half of head terms, and it is only asked for your seeds.

How big does depth 1 get?

Roughly a hundred times depth 0, so set Maximum keywords before you turn it on.

Can I call it from code or connect it to an AI assistant?

Yes. The API tab has ready-made code for Python, JavaScript and the command line. For Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP client, connect https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,dami_studio/taobao-keyword-suggestions-scraper. Either way the run happens on your Apify account at the same price.

Is scraping Taobao suggestions legal?

Autocomplete suggestions are public. Apify's write-up on the legality of web scraping is a good starting point, and we are not lawyers.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the seeds you used, the depth and the run ID. A NO_SUGGESTIONS row on a Chinese seed that works in Taobao's own search box is worth reporting.