# Content Velocity Tracker - Blog Publishing Cadence per Site (`dennydevelops/content-velocity-tracker`) Actor

For any list of websites: how often they publish (posts per month over the last 12 months from sitemaps), last publish date, trend, and a status like active, slowing or went quiet. Find companies that stopped blogging, benchmark competitors, schedule weekly.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/dennydevelops/content-velocity-tracker.md
- **Developed by:** [Musedenny](https://apify.com/dennydevelops) (community)
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event + usage

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

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

## Content Velocity Tracker – Blog Publishing Cadence per Site

For any list of websites: **how often they publish**. Posts in the last 30, 90 and 365 days, a 12-month series, last publish date, trend (growing, steady, slowing) and a status: `active`, `slowing`, `went quiet`, `no dated content`, `no sitemap` or `unreachable`.

Built for content and SEO agencies (find companies whose blog **went quiet**: they need help), competitive content benchmarking, and sales teams using "they stopped marketing" as a signal.

### How it works

1. Reads robots.txt and the sitemaps (sitemap indexes followed; blog/news/post sitemaps first; product, tag, author and page sitemaps skipped; up to 25 files).
2. Keeps content URLs (`/blog/`, `/news/`, `/insights/`, `/resources/`, `/press/`… or anything in a post sitemap). Help-center and docs pages are excluded because they get bulk-edited.
3. Counts `<lastmod>` / news publication dates by month.
4. **Unreliable dates are detected:** if a CMS stamps every URL with one date, or half a big archive was "modified" this month (a bulk re-save), sitemap dates are ignored and the site's **RSS/Atom feed** is used instead (found from the homepage `<link rel="alternate">` or common paths, blog subdomain included). Feeds hold only the latest 10–50 posts, so `countsAreLowerBound` is set and no trend is claimed.

Scheduled runs also report `newContentSinceLastRun`: dated content newer than the last run's latest date.

### Input

| Field | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| `urls` | – | Domains or website URLs |
| `onlyStatus` | \[] | e.g. `went quiet`, `slowing` |
| `maxSites` | 10000 | Cap per run |

### Output

```json
{
  "domain": "buffer.com", "status": "slowing", "contentSection": "resources, press, insights", "lastPublished": "2026-10-30",
  "daysSinceLast": 2, "posts30d": 41, "posts90d": 79, "posts365d": 471, "avgPerMonth12m": 39.2, "trend": "slowing",
  "monthly": {"2025-12": 52, "…": 0, "2026-11": 0}, "dateSource": "sitemap", "sitemapDatesReliable": true, "countsAreLowerBound": false,
  "totalUrls": 3443, "contentUrls": 1920, "sitemapsRead": 11, "latestUrls": ["https://buffer.com/resources/…"],
  "previousLastPublished": null, "newContentSinceLastRun": null
}
```

Status rules: `went quiet` = nothing new for 180+ days; `slowing` = 90–180 days, or the last 3 months well below the 9 before; `active` otherwise.

**Note:** `lastmod` records when a page changed, which is usually but not always when it was published. Treat counts as publishing activity, not an exact post count.

### Pricing (pay per event)

$0.001 per run and **$0.002 per site**: 500 sites for $1.

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Domains or website URLs.

## `onlyStatus` (type: `array`):

e.g. "went quiet", "slowing", "active", "no dated content", "no sitemap". Every site analyzed is still billed.

## `maxSites` (type: `integer`):

Caps work and cost per run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "hubspot.com",
    "apify.com",
    "example.com"
  ],
  "onlyStatus": [],
  "maxSites": 10000
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (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 = {
    "urls": [
        "hubspot.com",
        "apify.com",
        "example.com"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("dennydevelops/content-velocity-tracker").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 = { "urls": [
        "hubspot.com",
        "apify.com",
        "example.com",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("dennydevelops/content-velocity-tracker").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 '{
  "urls": [
    "hubspot.com",
    "apify.com",
    "example.com"
  ]
}' |
apify call dennydevelops/content-velocity-tracker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,dennydevelops/content-velocity-tracker"
        }
    }
}
```

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/maeGkOwepzezJddxm/builds/2LJFm4MtB4dkP77I8/openapi.json