# Brand AI Overview Hijack Scanner (`growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner`) Actor

See who Google's AI Overview cites when people search your brand (or a prospect's): competitors, review sites, Reddit, or you. Citation share, negative wording, who outranks you on your own name, and fixes. Bulk brands, white-label report.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner.md
- **Developed by:** [Growth Installations](https://apify.com/growth-installations) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, AI, Lead generation
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$500.00 / 1,000 brand scanneds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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

## Brand AI Overview Hijack Scanner: Who Google's AI Cites for Your Brand

**$0.50 per brand scanned.** Brands with zero Google results are free.

Search your brand name on Google and the AI Overview often cites Reddit, Trustpilot, YouTube and your competitors' "alternatives" pages instead of you. This Actor runs the brand searches that decide deals ("{brand}", "{brand} reviews", "{brand} pricing", "is {brand} legit", "{brand} alternatives", plus your own), reads each AI Overview and its cited sources, and scores how badly the brand's story has been taken over.

### What does it do?

For each brand it reports:

- **hijackRisk 0-100** and **hijackLevel** (low / medium / high)
- **ownCitationShare**: the share of AI Overview citations that point to the brand's own site
- **competitorsCited** and **outrankedOnBrandQueriesBy**: competitors, comparison and affiliate pages showing up on the brand's own searches
- **reviewAndForumSitesCited**: Reddit, YouTube, Trustpilot, G2 and similar
- **negativeMentions**: complaint, scam, refund, hidden-fee wording inside the AI Overview, with the snippet
- **ownRankForBrandName** in organic results
- **fixes**: what to publish to win the citations back

### Who is it for?

GEO / AI SEO agencies (it is a ready-made reason to call a prospect), brand and PR teams, and SaaS marketers watching their "alternatives" and "reviews" searches.

### How much does it cost?

| Event | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Brand scanned | $0.50 | One brand checked across up to 10 brand searches with the full AI Overview analysis and fixes |

Google Search + AI Overview results come from apify/google-search-scraper, which runs as a sub-run on your Apify account (a few cents per brand at the default 5 searches) and is capped inside each run. Set a maximum charge per run in the Console to cap spend.

### Input example

```json
{
  "brands": [
    "Gusto | gusto.com | rippling.com, adp.com",
    "Jobber | getjobber.com | housecallpro.com"
  ],
  "countryCode": "us"
}
```

Line format: `Brand | domain | competitor1, competitor2`. Competitors are optional; anything that looks like a "vs" or "alternatives" page is flagged anyway.

### Output

One dataset row per brand: `brand`, `domain`, `queriesScanned`, `aiOverviewsFound`, `aiOverviewsCitingOwnSite`, `ownCitationShare`, `hijackRisk`, `hijackLevel`, `topThirdPartyCited`, `competitorsCited`, `reviewAndForumSitesCited`, `negativeMentions`, `ownRankForBrandName`, `outrankedOnBrandQueriesBy`, `fixes`, `flags`.
Key-value store: `REPORT_MD`, `REPORT_HTML`, `REPORT_JSON` (includes every query's AI Overview text and sources).

### Sample output (live run, Nov 3, 2026)

| brand | AI Overviews | own citation share | hijackRisk | top third-party sources | competitors cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gusto | 4 of 5 | 17% | 64 (high) | youtube.com 10x, reddit.com 2x, trustpilot.com 2x | business.com, deelo.ai |
| Jobber | 5 of 5 | 10% | 77 (high) | youtube.com 13x, reddit.com 4x, facebook.com 3x | workever.com, fieldrocket.us |

Jobber ranks #1 for its own name, but on its brand searches it is outranked by reddit.com, trustpilot.com and housecallpro.com, and the "Jobber reviews" AI Overview contains complaint wording ("A frequent complaint...").

### FAQ

**Which country?** Any Google country via `countryCode` / `languageCode`.

**Can I change the searches?** Yes, edit `queryTemplates`; `{brand}` is replaced with the brand name (up to 10 searches per brand).

### Use it from n8n, Make, Claude or Cursor

- MCP: add `https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner` to Claude, Cursor or any MCP client.
- n8n or Make: add an HTTP Request step that POSTs your input JSON to the API endpoint below and returns the dataset items.
- API: `POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/growth-installations~brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner/run-sync-get-dataset-items` with header `Authorization: Bearer <your Apify API token>`

# Actor input Schema

## `brands` (type: `array`):

One brand per line. Format: 'Brand name | domain.com | competitor1.com, competitor2.com'. Domain and competitors are optional (the domain is auto-detected from the top result). A bare domain like 'monday.com' also works. Each brand is one 'brand-scan' charge.

## `queryTemplates` (type: `array`):

Google searches to run per brand. {brand} is replaced with the brand name. Max 10 per brand; extra lines are ignored.

## `countryCode` (type: `string`):

Two-letter country code for Google, e.g. us, gb, ca, au, de.

## `languageCode` (type: `string`):

Interface language for Google results, e.g. en, de, fr.

## `agencyName` (type: `string`):

Shown on the HTML/Markdown report so you can send it to a client or prospect.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "brands": [
    "Gusto | gusto.com | rippling.com, adp.com",
    "monday.com"
  ],
  "queryTemplates": [
    "{brand}",
    "{brand} reviews",
    "{brand} pricing",
    "is {brand} legit",
    "{brand} alternatives"
  ],
  "countryCode": "us",
  "languageCode": "en",
  "agencyName": ""
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

## `report_md` (type: `string`):

No description

## `report_html` (type: `string`):

No description

## `report_json` (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 = {
    "brands": [
        "Gusto | gusto.com | rippling.com, adp.com",
        "monday.com"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner").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 = { "brands": [
        "Gusto | gusto.com | rippling.com, adp.com",
        "monday.com",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner").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 '{
  "brands": [
    "Gusto | gusto.com | rippling.com, adp.com",
    "monday.com"
  ]
}' |
apify call growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,growth-installations/brand-ai-overview-hijack-scanner"
        }
    }
}
```

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/FZeQBHsoZpwwVeQi7/builds/0QKPQuFXw4YhlOuQQ/openapi.json