Competitor Keyword Research — See Any Site's Ranked Keywords (+ Keyword Gap) · Semrush / Ahrefs Alternative API

Paste any competitor's domain → get every keyword it ranks for in Google, each with search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, exact ranking position, ranking URL and estimated traffic value. Then flip to keyword-gap mode to see exactly where a competitor ranks and you don't — a content roadmap ranked by opportunity.

Built on live native SEO data straight from Google's index — not a scrape of a third-party SEO tool that breaks the moment a dashboard changes. Pay per keyword. No subscription, no seat, no login. A full 1,000-keyword teardown costs about the price of a coffee.

Built for SEO agencies running instant competitor teardowns, content teams turning gap lists into roadmaps, founders checking what wins rivals organic traffic, and developers / AI agents dropping clean ranked-keyword JSON into a pipeline via Apify MCP.

What does Competitor Keyword Research do?

Two jobs, one actor:

Ranked-keywords mode (default) — input a domain, get every keyword it ranks for in Google organic, with volume, keyword difficulty (0–100), search intent, the exact position it holds, the ranking page, and estimated traffic value. Sort and filter to find a competitor's biggest organic assets in minutes.

Keyword-gap mode — input a competitor and your own domain to get the shared keyword universe with both positions side by side, plus a gap_type on every row:

gap_type	meaning	what to do
missing	they rank, you don't appear	net-new content opportunity
weaker	you rank, but below them	optimize / build links
stronger	you outrank them	defend, monitor
tied	same position bracket	push for the edge

Filter to missing + low difficulty + high volume for a prioritized content roadmap built from real ranking data, not guesswork.

Why use Competitor Keyword Research

• Native data, not a scrape — reads ranking data straight from Google's search surface, so runs don't silently die when a third-party SEO dashboard ships a redesign, and there's no third-party account to get rate-limited or banned. If you've been burned by an Apify "Ahrefs/Semrush scraper" that worked for a month then returned empty rows, this is the fix.
• Difficulty + intent in one pass — keyword difficulty and search intent arrive with the ranking data, no second lookup.
• Pay per keyword, no seat — run a teardown when you're pitching a client or planning a quarter; pay for exactly those keywords, done. No monthly commitment.
• Fast & scriptable — a typical 1,000-keyword report returns in seconds; larger pulls paginate automatically to the 5,000 cap. Clean JSON over the API and MCP, schedulable for ongoing monitoring.

How to find a competitor's ranked keywords

1. Paste the competitor's domain into target (or leave the prefilled ahrefs.com).
2. For a keyword gap, set mode: "gap" and add compareToDomain (your site).
3. Set maxKeywords and, optionally, location / language and filters.
4. Click Start — in seconds you get a clean table of ranked keywords.
5. Download (JSON, CSV, Excel), then sort by volume, filter by difficulty, or filter gap_type: missing for your roadmap.

Ranked keywords:

{ "target": "ahrefs.com", "maxKeywords": 100 }

Keyword gap vs your own site:

{ "mode": "gap", "target": "ahrefs.com", "compareToDomain": "yourdomain.com", "maxKeywords": 500 }

What keyword data you get

One dataset item per ranked keyword:

Field	Description
keyword	the search term the domain ranks for
search_volume	monthly Google searches (location-specific)
cpc	cost-per-click signal (commercial value)
competition_level	LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH
keyword_difficulty	0–100 ranking difficulty (see coverage note)
search_intent	informational / commercial / transactional / navigational
competitor_domain	the domain analyzed
competitor_rank	exact organic position held
competitor_url	the page that ranks
estimated_traffic_value	estimated traffic value of that ranking
is_featured_snippet	whether it holds the featured snippet
Gap mode adds	your_domain / your_rank / your_url (null = you don't rank) + gap_type
Always	location, language, content_hash (stable dedup hash per keyword)

{
  "keyword": "keyword generator",
  "search_volume": 90,
  "competition_level": "LOW",
  "keyword_difficulty": 40,
  "search_intent": "informational",
  "competitor_domain": "ahrefs.com",
  "competitor_rank": 1,
  "competitor_url": "https://ahrefs.com/keyword-generator",
  "estimated_traffic_value": 27.36,
  "is_featured_snippet": false,
  "location": "United States",
  "language": "English",
  "content_hash": "a1b2c3d4e5f60718"
}

Gap-mode row (competitor ahrefs.com vs your moz.com):

{
  "keyword": "googlebot",
  "search_volume": 550000,
  "keyword_difficulty": 26,
  "competitor_domain": "ahrefs.com",
  "competitor_rank": 8,
  "your_domain": "moz.com",
  "your_rank": 29,
  "gap_type": "weaker"
}

Note on keyword_difficulty coverage. Difficulty is densest in major markets (US / UK / DE / …). Some smaller-market or non-English locales have sparse difficulty coverage in the source data and return 0 for many keywords — a data-availability limit, not a scoring error. Every other field is unaffected; lean on search_volume + competitor_rank when difficulty is unavailable for your market.

Input parameters

Field	Type	Default	Notes
target	string	—	required. Competitor domain (e.g. ahrefs.com)
mode	enum	ranked	ranked or gap
compareToDomain	string	—	required in gap mode — your domain
maxKeywords	int	250	1–5,000 (hard cap, so a run can't drain credits)
location	string	United States	any supported location
language	string	English	any supported language
minVolume	int	0	filter
maxKeywordDifficulty	int	100	filter (0–100)
intentFilter	array	[]	subset of the four intents
positionFrom / positionTo	int	1 / 100	rank range

Full configuration is on the Input tab. Run it from any stack via the Apify API client or the Apify MCP server (mcp.apify.com).

How much does competitor keyword research cost?

You're charged per keyword delivered, on success only — empty results and failed runs cost nothing. Apify automatically discounts the per-keyword price on higher plans.

What you run	Keywords delivered	Approx. cost (Gold)
Quick competitor peek	100	~$0.25
Standard competitor report	1,000	~$2.50
Deep teardown	3,000	~$7.50
Keyword-gap (you vs them)	1,000	~$2.50

Compare that to a Semrush/Ahrefs seat (from ~$100+/mo, login required): no seat, no monthly commitment — pay for exactly the keywords you pull.

Competitor Keyword Research vs Ahrefs, Semrush & Moz

	This actor	Ahrefs / Semrush / Moz	Other Apify "SEO scraper" actors
Data source	live native SEO data	native (SaaS dashboard)	scrape a 3rd-party dashboard (fragile)
Access	API + MCP, clean JSON	login + UI	actor
Pricing	pay per keyword	seat, ~$100+/mo	varies
Difficulty + intent	✅ on every row, one pass	✅	often missing
Breaks on dashboard redesign	❌ no 3rd-party account	n/a	✅ yes

Same core job as the SaaS dashboards — the keywords a domain ranks for + the gap vs yours — but pay-per-scan, as an API, with nothing to break when someone else redesigns a page.

What this actor does not do

• It's not a full SEO suite — no backlinks, audits or dashboards; just clean ranked-keyword and gap data you own as JSON. (For backlinks, see the related Backlink Checker.)
• It doesn't track your own rankings over time — it reports a competitor's ranked keywords and the gap; to monitor where you rank, pair it with a rank checker.
• keyword_difficulty coverage is sparse in smaller/non-English markets (returns 0) — a source data limit, not a bug.

FAQ

How do I see what keywords a competitor ranks for?

Paste their domain as target and run. You get every keyword they rank for with volume, difficulty, intent, position and traffic value — no access to their account needed.

How do I find the keyword gap between two websites?

Set mode: "gap", target = competitor, compareToDomain = your site. Every row shows both positions and a gap_type; filter to missing for net-new opportunities.

Is this a Semrush / Ahrefs alternative?

For the competitor-keyword and keyword-gap job, yes — same data, pay-per-scan instead of a monthly seat, as an API/MCP instead of a dashboard.

Where does the data come from — is it accurate?

Live native SEO data from Google's search surface (not a scraped dashboard). Difficulty and intent come with the ranking data in the same pass.

Does it work for non-US / non-English domains?

Yes — set location and language to any supported market. (See the difficulty-coverage note above.)

What does a competitor report cost?

About $2.50 for 1,000 keywords on the Gold tier, ~$0.25 for a 100-keyword peek. You're never charged for empty or failed runs, and every run is capped by maxKeywords.

Is it legal to research a competitor's keywords?

Yes. Ranked-keyword data is derived from public search results — the same thing anyone sees on Google. You're analysing which public queries a site appears for, not accessing anything private.

Is this safe for AI agents to run?

Yes. It runs under limited permissions — it only pulls ranked keywords and writes your dataset, never touching the rest of your account, so there's no full-permission approval step. Run it from any agent or IDE via the Apify MCP server.

Legal & compliance

Reads public search-results data only — the same organic rankings anyone sees in Google. No logins, no paywalled data, no third-party SEO-tool accounts. You control the domains and locations you query. Found a bug or need a field? Open a ticket on the Issues tab; code samples are on the API tab.

Related Actors

A natural workflow: pull a competitor's ranked keywords here → enrich with volume/CPC in Keyword Metrics → organize into clusters for your content plan.

• Keyword Metrics Pro — Google + Bing search volume, CPC & 12-month trend for the keywords you find.
• AI Keyword Clustering Tool — group them into a topical authority map.
• Google Rank Checker — verify where YOU rank for the keywords you just found (position, who beats you, AI Overview).
• Backlink Checker API — your competitor's backlinks & referring domains.
• AI Brand Visibility Tracker — competitor visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity & Gemini.
• Website Traffic & Domain Authority — competitor traffic & authority rank in bulk (SEO Similarweb alternative).

SEO keywords

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