Weibo Scraper — Posts, Comments, Profiles & Hot Search

What is Weibo Scraper?

Weibo Scraper — Posts, Comments, Profiles & Hot Search lets you extract public data from Sina Weibo (新浪微博): posts by keyword or date range, #topics#, the hot search boards, comments and replies, user profiles, fans, followings, and complaints from Black Cat (黑猫投诉), Sina's consumer complaint site. Just paste keywords, links or IDs into one box and click Start; you don't need a Weibo account, cookies or any coding. It's made for marketers, market researchers and social listening analysts, and on the Apify Free plan each run returns up to 10 results, enough for a first test.

This Sina Weibo scraper also suits PR teams, influencer marketers and data scientists who need clean, structured Chinese social media data instead of copy-pasting from the Weibo app.

• China market research: read what Chinese consumers post about a product, brand or category before a launch.
• Weibo brand monitoring: schedule a daily keyword search and get only the posts and comments that are new since the last run.
• Influencer research: find the creators who post most about a keyword, with their follower counts and engagement.
• Trend tracking: save the Weibo hot search list on a schedule and see how ranks and heat change between runs.
• Opinion analysis: collect full comment threads with replies, optionally scored for Chinese sentiment.
• Complaint watch: follow Black Cat complaints filed against a company.

Weibo Scraper does not use the official Sina Weibo API, so you don't need a developer key or a Weibo login. It reads the public pages any logged-out visitor can see and turns them into structured rows you can export, schedule and connect to other tools. In one Actor you get a Weibo search scraper, a Weibo user scraper, a Weibo hot search scraper and a Weibo comment crawler, so you don't need a separate Weibo extractor for each job.

What can Weibo Scraper do?

• 🔍 14 modes in one Weibo scraping tool: keyword search, topic search with topic stats, hot search boards, hot search changes since the last run, hot feed by category, post details, post comments and replies, post likers, user profiles, user posts (newest), user fans, user followings, KOL discovery by keyword (KOL = key opinion leader, an influencer), and Black Cat complaints. See the modes table.
• 🔗 One bulk box: in Auto mode, every entry picks its own job by its shape (keyword, #topic#, post link, profile link, numeric ID, Black Cat link). Several modes can run in one run.
• 📅 Date-window search in Beijing time, with absolute or relative dates, spread over the window by day or hour so you don't only get the newest part of the window.
• 🈶 Chinese brand names: a Latin brand name like Nike is also searched as 耐克, and results are merged and deduplicated.
• 📣 Promoted posts flagged on every post (isPromoted), with a filter to keep all, drop them or keep only them.
• 📡 Built for monitoring: return only new rows per monitoring key, track hot-board movement, and pick up late comments on earlier posts.
• 📦 Export and automate: download JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, run it through the API, schedule runs and connect it to other apps.
• 🌐 No proxy setup needed: runs start without a proxy and switch to Apify Proxy automatically if Weibo blocks requests (see Proxy).

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What data can Weibo Scraper extract?

As a Weibo data scraper, the Actor returns eight kinds of rows, so Weibo data extraction fits whatever you analyze next. Every row has a rowType field that tells you what it is. The field names below are the same ones you see in the Output tab.

Row type	Key fields
📝 Post (post)	postId, postUrl, text, createdAtIso, source, province, city, hashtags, mentions, images, videoUrl, repostsCount, commentsCount, attitudesCount, engagementRate, isPromoted, authorName, authorFollowers, authorVerifiedLabel, query, matchesQuery
💬 Comment or reply (comment)	commentId, postId, rootCommentId, isReply, text, createdAtIso, likeCount, replyCount, authorRegion, authorName, authorFollowers, isFollowUp
👤 User or creator (user)	userId, screenName, profileUrl, relation, description, location, ipLocation, followersCount, friendsCount, statusesCount, verifiedLabel, vIndex, contacts, avgEngagement, engagementRate, kolScore, kolRank
🔥 Hot search entry (hot_search)	board, rank, title, hashtag, hotValue, category, labelName, isPromoted, isGov, minutesOnBoard, status, rankDelta, peakRank
🔖 Topic (topic)	topic, readCount, discussionCount, originalCount, category, host, found
😾 Complaint (complaint)	complaintId, title, summary, appeal, issue, amountInvolvedCny, companyName, status, statusEn, createdAt, commentsCount, upvoteCount, url
🧭 Province rollup (geo_rollup)	province, provinceEn, postCount, sharePct, promotedCount, topCities, sentimentMean, lowConfidence
🚫 Unavailable post (post_status)	postId, postUrl, available, unavailableReason

That makes it a Weibo posts scraper, a Weibo comments scraper and a Weibo profile scraper at the same time: user rows carry the Weibo followers count (followersCount), the following count, the number of posts, verification, influence badges and contacts found in the bio (emails, phones, WeChat, QQ).

Note: some fields are filled only in certain cases.

• province, city and country are filled when Weibo attaches a location to the post.
• Author followers, location, bio and total interactions on post rows are filled by 🧬 Complete author fields on posts (on by default). They stay empty if Weibo doesn't serve that profile.
• videoUrl, videoDurationSec and videoPlayCount are filled for video posts.
• On hot boards, promoted entries have rank set to null, and the pinned slot has rank 0 and isGov true.
• Change fields on hot search rows (status, previousRank, rankDelta, peakRank and the others) are filled in the hot search changes mode or with 🆕 Only new rows on.
• sentiment is filled with 😊 Sentiment on. matchesQuery is filled on posts from keyword search and topic search.
• Engagement and KOL fields on user rows are filled for profiles and KOL discovery while 📐 Engagement metrics is on.
• isTruncated stays true if the full text of a long post could not be loaded.

Language: text is returned exactly as posted, so it's mostly Chinese. The Actor doesn't translate it; use your own translation tool if you need English. A few helper fields are already in English: provinceEn, authorRegionEn and the complaint status statusEn.

What data can't Weibo Scraper extract?

• Private content, or anything that needs a Weibo login.
• More than about the 10 newest posts of a user timeline (Weibo's limit for logged-out visitors).
• More than the first page (about 20 accounts) of a fan or following list.
• More than 50 pages of a Black Cat complaint list.
• The list of reposts of a post (there is no reposts mode).
• Custom profile addresses such as weibo.com/name (use the numeric /u/ link instead).
• Media files: you get image and video URLs, not the files.
• Hot boards that Weibo shows only to logged-in users (they are skipped).

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How to scrape Weibo in 5 steps

Weibo Scraper is designed for an easy start, even if you've never extracted data from the web before. Here is how to scrape Weibo with it:

1. Create a free Apify account using your email.
2. Open Weibo Scraper.
3. In 🔗 Weibo links, IDs or keywords, replace the prefilled 人工智能 with your keyword, #topic#, post link or Weibo user ID (or keep it for a first test). For the hot boards, the hot feed or complaints, pick that mode in the 🚀 What to scrape dropdown instead and clear the box (see the modes table for what each mode does with leftover entries).
4. Click Start. Rows appear in the Output tab while the run is going. Run time depends on the mode and your settings, so time your first test run before you plan bigger ones.
5. When the run finishes, open the Output tab, pick a table (for example 📝 Posts) and click the Export button above the table to export Weibo data as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML.

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💲 How much does it cost to scrape Weibo?

Weibo Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing. Your bill for a run has three parts:

Part	Price	When it's charged
Results	$0.02 per result ($20.00 per 1,000 results) on the Free plan (lower on paid plans, see below)	For every row saved to the dataset: posts, comments, replies, users, hot board entries, topics, complaints, province rows and unavailable-post rows
Actor start	A fixed $0.00005 per run at the default memory (1 GB)	Once per run
Platform usage	The Apify compute and proxy traffic your run uses	On top of the two prices above

Apify plan	Price per result	Price per 1,000 results
Free	$0.02	$20.00
Starter	$0.018	$18.00
Scale	$0.016	$16.00
Business and higher	$0.014	$14.00

Paid Apify plans get a lower result price. The plan discount applies to that price only. The start fee is the same on every plan, and platform usage is billed at your Apify plan's own rates. See the pricing tab for the event list.

Rounded examples for the result and start charges at Free plan prices (platform usage comes on top):

Results	Results charge (Free plan)	Start charge
10	$0.20	$0.00005
100	$2.00	$0.00005
1,000	$20.00	$0.00005

How do comments and replies change the bill?

Every comment and every reply is its own result row, so they add up fast. For example, at Free plan prices:

• 10 posts, comments off: 10 results = $0.20.
• 10 posts with 10 comments each (💬 Also collect comments of each post on, 🧮 Max comments per post 10): 10 + 100 = up to 110 results = $2.20.
• The same, plus 1 reply per comment (🧵 Include replies to comments on, 🪃 Max replies per comment 1): 10 + 100 + 100 = up to 210 results = $4.20.

Posts with fewer comments or replies cost less. 🪪 Author profile rows also add one row per distinct author. 🧬 Complete author fields on posts and 📜 Full text of long posts add no rows, but they make extra page loads, so the run takes a bit longer and uses a bit more platform usage.

How to estimate platform usage with a test run

We don't publish a platform usage figure, because it depends on the mode, your settings and how Weibo responds. Measure it yourself in a few minutes:

1. Run the default input (10 results) or a small version of your real setup.
2. When it finishes, open the run in Apify Console. The run page shows its platform usage cost and how long it took.
3. Divide by the number of results and multiply by the volume you plan. Add the result charges ($0.02 each on the Free plan, less on paid plans) and $0.00005 per run.

How do I cap the cost of a run?

Set a maximum charge limit when you start a run. When the run reaches it, it stops cleanly, keeps every row saved so far, and its status message tells you how many rows were delivered. You are not charged for rows above that limit, for rows above the Free plan cap, for rows dropped by your filters, or for items that could not be loaded (deleted posts, profiles Weibo doesn't serve, posts with no comments). Each row is charged once, even though it also shows up in its own table (Posts, Comments and the others). One exception: with 🚫 Rows for unavailable posts on, each deleted or hidden post gets a status row, and that row counts as a result.

Is scraping Weibo free?

You can try it on the Apify Free plan, which includes $5 of prepaid platform usage each month (Apify pricing). Both the result charges and the platform usage are paid from that credit. A default run of 10 results costs $0.20 in result charges, plus $0.00005 for the start, plus its platform usage. How many runs your credit covers depends on that usage, so check it after your first run.

On the Free plan, each run stops at 10 rows, counting all row types together (posts, comments, replies, users and the others). If you turn on comments, those 10 rows include the comments, so you may see only 1 or 2 posts. That's the cap, not an error: the run finishes successfully with a message that explains it. To get more than 10 rows per run, switch to any paid Apify plan. Your own settings such as 💯 Max results then decide how much you collect.

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⬇️ Weibo Scraper input

No field is strictly required, but most runs need at least one entry in 🔗 Weibo links, IDs or keywords. The hot boards, hot search changes, hot feed and complaints modes need no entries at all. See the input tab for every field.

Settings most people change

Setting	Default	What it does
🔗 Weibo links, IDs or keywords (urls)	人工智能 (prefill)	Keywords, #topics#, search pages, post links, numeric post IDs, profile links, numeric user IDs, Black Cat company links, hot search links
🚀 What to scrape (mode)	auto	Auto picks a job per entry. Pick one mode to apply the same job to the whole list
💯 Max results (maxResults)	10	How many rows to collect (per run or per user or post, see below)
💬 Also collect comments of each post (includeComments)	off	Adds the comment thread of each post
🧮 Max comments per post (maxComments)	10	Top-level comments per post
🧵 Include replies to comments (includeReplies)	off	Adds replies under each comment
🪃 Max replies per comment (maxRepliesPerComment)	1	Replies per comment
📅 Posted from / 📆 Posted until (searchDateFrom, searchDateTo)	empty	The date window, in Beijing time
📂 Search results tab (searchType)	realtime	realtime, all, hot, video or images
📶 Hot boards (hotBoards)	realtime, entertainment, topics	Which hot search boards to read

Your first run in the form: leave 🚀 What to scrape on Auto — detect from each entry, keep 人工智能 (artificial intelligence) in 🔗 Weibo links, IDs or keywords and 💯 Max results at 10, then click Start. It runs a keyword search on the realtime tab and returns up to 10 posts. The same input as JSON, for the API:

{
    "mode": "auto",
    "urls": ["人工智能"],
    "maxResults": 10
}

Modes: what to scrape

These are the options in the 🚀 What to scrape dropdown. The code in brackets is the value to use in the API.

Dropdown label	What to put in the box	Example entry
Auto — detect from each entry (auto)	Any mix of the entries below; each one picks its own mode	人工智能, #人工智能#, https://weibo.com/u/1749127163
Keyword search — posts (search)	Keywords	Nike
Topic search — #话题# stats + posts (topic)	#topics#	#新能源汽车#
Hot search boards (热搜) (hot_search)	Nothing; pick boards in 📶 Hot boards. Board names typed in the box (realtime, entertainment) replace that list; other entries, like the prefill, are skipped with a notice in the log	(empty)
Hot search changes since the last run (hot_search_delta)	Same as Hot search boards	(empty)
Hot feed by category (热门微博) (hot_timeline)	Nothing, or category names. Entries in the box replace 📰 Hot feed categories: an unknown name such as the prefill is skipped, and 热门 is used if no name is valid, so clear the box	科技
Post details (post_details)	Post links, numeric post IDs or short codes	https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5249718969175092
Post comments & replies (post_comments)	Post links, IDs or short codes	https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5249718969175092
Post likers (post_likers)	Post links, IDs or short codes	https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5249718969175092
User profiles (user_profile)	Profile links or numeric user IDs	https://weibo.com/u/1749127163
User posts (newest) (user_posts)	Profile links or user IDs	1749127163
User fans (user_fans)	Profile links or user IDs	1749127163
User followings (user_followings)	Profile links or user IDs	1749127163
KOL / influencer discovery by keyword (kol_discovery)	Keywords	新能源汽车
Black Cat complaints (黑猫投诉) (complaints)	Black Cat company links, or nothing for the public feed. Entries that aren't company links, like the prefill, are skipped with a notice, and the public feed is read, using the tab chosen in 😾 Complaint list (latest by default)	(empty)

A few other common setups:

Goal	In the form	JSON
Weibo hot search entertainment and realtime boards	Hot search boards (热搜), clear the box, 📶 Hot boards: Realtime + Entertainment	{"mode": "hot_search", "hotBoards": ["realtime", "entertainment"]}
Comments and replies of one post	Post comments & replies, paste the post link, 🧮 Max comments per post 50, 🧵 Include replies to comments on	{"mode": "post_comments", "urls": ["https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5249718969175092"], "maxComments": 50, "includeReplies": true}
Creators who post about a keyword	KOL / influencer discovery by keyword, type the keyword, 🏆 Max creators 30, 📈 Min followers 10000	{"mode": "kol_discovery", "urls": ["新能源汽车"], "maxKols": 30, "minFollowers": 10000}
Daily brand monitoring	Keyword search — posts, type Nike, 📅 Posted from 1 day, 🆕 Only new rows on, 🔑 Monitoring key nike-daily, then add a daily schedule	{"mode": "search", "urls": ["Nike"], "searchDateFrom": "1 day", "deltaMode": true, "deltaStateKey": "nike-daily"}

Advanced settings

Setting	Default	What it does
🍰 Spread over the window (sliceBy)	auto	Splits a date window into day or hour slices: auto, day, hour, none
🈶 Also search Chinese brand names (autoLocalize)	on	Also searches the Chinese name of a Latin brand name
🧩 Extra search variants (searchAliases)	empty	More spellings to search and merge with every keyword
🎯 Only posts that contain the keyword (strictQueryMatch)	off	Drops posts whose text doesn't contain a search term
📣 Promoted posts (adFilter)	all	all, organic_only or promo_only
🔭 Max rows examined by filters (maxScanned)	20,000	Stops when filters reject most rows
🔀 Comment order (commentSort)	hot	hot or time (newest first)
📰 Hot feed categories (hotTimelineCategories)	热门	Hot feed categories as Weibo names them (热门, 科技, 财经)
😾 Complaint list (complaintTab)	latest	latest, hot, replied or completed
🪪 Author profile rows (includeAuthorProfiles) / 👥 Max author profiles (maxAuthorProfiles)	off / 50	Adds one profile row per post author
🧬 Complete author fields on posts (backfillAuthors)	on	Fills author followers, location, bio and total interactions on post rows
📜 Full text of long posts (fetchFullText)	on	Loads the full text of posts Weibo cuts at about 140 characters
😊 Sentiment (sentimentAnalysis)	off	Adds a sentiment score from -1 to 1 to posts, comments and complaints
🌏 Province rollup (geoRollup)	off	Adds one row per province or country
🚫 Rows for unavailable posts (includeUnavailableRows)	off	Post details mode: adds a status row for deleted or hidden posts
🏆 Max creators (maxKols), 📈 Min followers (minFollowers), ✅ Verified creators only (verifiedOnly)	30, 0, off	KOL discovery settings
📐 Engagement metrics (kolMetrics)	on	Average reposts, comments, likes, engagement rate and posting frequency over recent posts
🆕 Only new rows (deltaMode), 🔑 Monitoring key (deltaStateKey)	off, default	Returns only rows that earlier runs with the same key didn't deliver ("delta" in the field names means this difference since the last run)
⏰ Follow-up comments (followUpComments)	off	Keyword search with Only new rows: re-reads comments of earlier posts once, when they are 1 to 7 days old
⚡ Parallel requests (concurrency), ⏳ Delay between requests (requestDelay), 🔁 Retries per request (maxRetries)	3, 0.6 s, 3	Speed settings; the defaults suit most runs
🌐 Proxy (proxyConfiguration)	no proxy	Optional, see Proxy

Weibo links, IDs or keywords

This one box takes many kinds of entries. In Auto mode, each entry picks its own job: a keyword runs a search, a #topic# runs a topic search, a post link or a post ID with 13 or more digits returns post details, a profile link or a Weibo user ID (5 to 12 digits) returns the profile, and a Black Cat link returns complaints.

• ✅ Good: https://weibo.com/u/1749127163
• ❌ Bad: https://weibo.com/somecustomname

⚠️ Custom profile addresses are not resolved, so use the numeric /u/ link. A bare short code such as RlUTJtt8C is treated as a keyword in Auto mode; short codes work only in the post modes.

What to scrape

Leave it on Auto — detect from each entry for a mixed list, or pick one mode to run the same job on every entry, for example the comments, likers or fans of every link.

• ✅ Good: Post comments & replies with a list of post links
• ❌ Bad: User posts (newest) with keywords

⚠️ A list mode with an empty box stops with an input problem. Entries that don't fit the chosen mode are skipped (listed in the 🧾 Run report, or in the log for the hot board modes), so the run can end with no results. Only the hot boards, hot search changes, hot feed and complaints modes work with an empty box.

Max results

In keyword search, topic search, the hot feed, post details and complaints, 💯 Max results counts per run. For user posts, likers, fans and followings, it counts per user or per post.

• ✅ Good: 10 for a quick test
• ❌ Bad: 500 in User posts (newest) (Weibo shows only about 10 posts of a timeline to logged-out visitors)

⚠️ On the Apify Free plan, every run stops at 10 rows in total.

Posted from and Posted until

Dates are in Beijing time. Use an absolute date such as 2026-09-01 or a relative one such as 7 days (counted back from the run start). An absolute 📆 Posted until date includes that whole day.

• ✅ Good: 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-07 in keyword search
• ❌ Bad: a date window in the hot boards mode (it's ignored there)

⚠️ The date window applies to keyword search, topic search, KOL discovery and user posts only.

Only new rows and Monitoring key

With 🆕 Only new rows on, the Actor remembers what it delivered for each 🔑 Monitoring key, across runs. It keeps that memory in your Apify account's storage, one record per key, so a scheduled run knows what earlier runs already sent you.

• ✅ Good: 🔑 Monitoring key set to nike-daily on a daily schedule
• ❌ Bad: two different monitors that share the key default

⚠️ Use a separate key for each monitor, or one monitor will hide rows from the other.

Proxy

You don't need to set a proxy. By default the run starts without one. If Weibo blocks requests, the run switches to Apify Proxy automatically and keeps it for the rest of the run, as long as Apify Proxy is available on your account (if it isn't, the run continues without a proxy). If you prefer, choose Apify Proxy in 🌐 Proxy so it's used from the first request, or add your own proxy URLs. Apify Proxy traffic counts toward your platform usage.

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⬆️ Weibo Scraper output

Rows are saved live while the run is going. In the Output tab you'll find 📦 All results (every row, rowType tells the kind) and one table per kind: 📝 Posts, 💬 Comments & replies, 👤 Users & creators, 🔥 Hot search, 🔖 Topics, 😾 Complaints and 🧭 Province rollup. Pick a table, choose the fields you need, and click the Export button above the table to download JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML.

The 🧾 Run report is a summary of the run. Open it from the Output tab, next to the tables. It lists what was not delivered and why, how well your date window was covered, and how often the key fields were filled.

JSON example

Results for the input example above (one post row from a real run, shortened):

{
    "rowType": "post",
    "mode": "search",
    "postId": "5352236077023522",
    "bid": "RlUTJtt8C",
    "postUrl": "https://weibo.com/1813739560/RlUTJtt8C",
    "text": "短视频很有意思，我经常刷到《潜伏》的片段……不知道未来会不会被人工智能代替呢？",
    "createdAtIso": "2026-10-09T22:26:22+08:00",
    "source": "华为Mate 80 RS",
    "province": "江苏",
    "provinceEn": "Jiangsu",
    "city": "南京",
    "isRepost": false,
    "repostsCount": 0,
    "commentsCount": 1,
    "attitudesCount": 0,
    "engagementRate": 0.000561,
    "isPromoted": false,
    "authorName": "湖边卡夫卡",
    "authorFollowers": 1784,
    "authorVerifiedLabel": "orange_grassroots",
    "authorLocation": "江苏 南京",
    "authorTotalInteractions": 12499,
    "query": "人工智能",
    "searchType": "实时",
    "matchesQuery": true
}

How to read some of these values:

• bid is the short code in the post link. source is the app or device the post was sent from.
• attitudesCount is the number of likes. engagementRate is (reposts + comments + likes) ÷ the author's followers, here 1 ÷ 1,784.
• authorVerifiedLabel is a readable form of Weibo's verification badge, for example orange_personal, blue_enterprise or unverified.
• searchType shows Weibo's own name of the tab that was read: 实时 is the realtime tab.
• createdAtIso is in Beijing time (+08:00).

Comment row shape

If you turn on comments, each comment and reply comes as its own row. This shows the shape of a comment row (field names from the dataset schema, descriptions instead of real values, shortened):

{
    "rowType": "comment",
    "commentId": "(ID of this comment)",
    "postId": "(ID of the post it belongs to)",
    "rootCommentId": "(top-level comment of the thread)",
    "replyToCommentId": "(comment this reply answers, for replies)",
    "isReply": "(true for a reply, false for a top-level comment)",
    "text": "(comment text as posted)",
    "createdAtIso": "(date and time, Beijing time)",
    "likeCount": "(number of likes)",
    "replyCount": "(number of replies)",
    "authorRegion": "(region Weibo shows for the commenter)",
    "authorRegionEn": "(the same region in English)",
    "authorName": "(commenter's name)",
    "authorFollowers": "(commenter's followers)",
    "isFollowUp": "(true if collected later by Follow-up comments)"
}

Use postId to join comments to their posts in a spreadsheet or database.

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Tips and advanced usage

How many results can you scrape with Weibo Scraper?

On a paid Apify plan, 💯 Max results goes up to 100,000, 🧮 Max comments per post up to 5,000, 🪃 Max replies per comment up to 1,000 and 🏆 Max creators up to 500. The real number also depends on Weibo's limits for logged-out visitors (about 10 newest posts per user, the first page of fans and followings, 50 pages per Black Cat list), your date window and search tab, your filters, and whether Weibo slows the requests down. A keyword search can end before your 💯 Max results when Weibo's search pages run out or ask for a login; the 🧾 Run report shows how much of your date window was covered. Run time depends on the same things, so time a test run too. Before you scrape Weibo at scale, do a quick test run with your own settings: it's the best way to know what to expect for your use case.

How to get cheaper results

• Start with the default 💯 Max results of 10 and raise it once the output looks right.
• Leave comments and replies off unless you need them: every comment and reply is a result.
• Use 🎯 Only posts that contain the keyword and 📣 Promoted posts: rows dropped by filters are not charged.
• Turn on 🆕 Only new rows for scheduled runs, so you never pay twice for the same post or comment.
• Set a maximum charge limit when you start a run.

Weibo monitoring with Only new rows

For China social media monitoring, put a keyword search on a daily schedule with 🆕 Only new rows and its own 🔑 Monitoring key. Each run returns only posts, comments, complaints, fans and likers that earlier runs with that key didn't deliver. Turn on ⏰ Follow-up comments to collect comments that arrive later on posts you already have. For the boards, use the Hot search changes since the last run mode: each entry gets a status (new, up, down, same or dropped) with its rank and heat change, first seen time, peak rank and peak heat.

Weibo sentiment analysis and province rollup

Turn on 😊 Sentiment to add a sentiment object (polarity and a score from -1 to 1), scored automatically for Chinese text, to every post, comment and complaint. It's an automatic score, so treat it as a signal for spotting trends across many rows and check individual posts yourself. Turn on 🌏 Province rollup to add one row per province or country with post count, share, promoted count and average sentiment. The rollup needs at least 50 posts with a location. When the run has fewer than 200 located posts, the rollup rows are marked lowConfidence. Average sentiment (sentimentMean) is filled when 😊 Sentiment is on too.

Known issues

• Custom profile addresses (weibo.com/name) are not resolved. Open the profile and copy the numeric /u/ link.
• Some long posts may keep isTruncated set to true when the full text can't be loaded.
• Topic statistics can be missing (found is false) when a topic is not registered or was renamed.
• A search tab that serves only its first page is reported in the run log.

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Integrations and API

Can I use Weibo Scraper as an API?

Yes. If you were looking for a Weibo API for public posts, comments and boards, this Weibo scraper API gives you one without a developer key. The Apify API lets you start runs, schedule them and fetch the results. Use the apify-client NPM package for Node.js or the apify-client PyPI package for Python. The API tab has ready-to-use code. For hot board snapshots in your own app, this works as a Weibo hot search API: call the hot_search mode from any script or scheduler.

How to use Weibo Scraper with Python

This Weibo scraper Python example runs the default input and prints each row:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("insights_data/weibo-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "auto",
    "urls": ["人工智能"],
    "maxResults": 10,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["rowType"], item.get("postUrl"), item.get("text"))

Can I integrate Weibo Scraper with other apps?

Yes. Connect Weibo Scraper with almost any cloud service through Apify integrations: Make, Zapier, Slack, Google Sheets, Google Drive, Airbyte, GitHub, LangChain and more. Use webhooks to trigger an action whenever a run finishes. For example, schedule the hot boards every hour and send each new snapshot to a Google Sheet.

Can I use Weibo Scraper with AI agents (MCP)?

Yes. Connect Weibo Scraper to Claude and other AI assistants through the Apify MCP server. Open the MCP tab for setup steps.

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Other social media scrapers

These Actors from the same author cover other platforms and complement Weibo Scraper:

🎬 Bilibili Scraper — Videos, Comments, Danmaku & Creator Uploads: Bilibili videos, comments with replies, danmaku, creator uploads, rankings and trending searches	💬 TikTok Comments & Replies Scraper: TikTok comments and replies with likes, dates and commenter details
👤 TikTok Profile Scraper: TikTok profile videos, reposts, playlists and author stats	📈 Stocktwits Scraper: Stocktwits messages with bullish and bearish sentiment

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❓ FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Weibo?

Scraping publicly available data is generally legal, but you are responsible for how you use it. Weibo Scraper collects only public pages. Respect personal data rules such as GDPR and China's PIPL, have a legitimate reason before you collect personal data, and take Weibo's terms into account. This is not legal advice. Read more in Apify's guide on whether web scraping is legal.

How does Weibo Scraper work?

It works like a person browsing Weibo while logged out, only faster. You paste links, IDs, #topics# or keywords. The Weibo crawler reads the public pages a logged-out visitor can see, turns each post, comment, profile, board entry or complaint into a structured row, saves rows live while the run is going, and writes a run report at the end.

How is Weibo Scraper different from copying posts by hand?

It turns what you would copy from the Weibo app into consistent rows, in bulk and on a schedule.

Feature	Weibo Scraper	Copying by hand
Many keywords, links and IDs in one run	✅	❌
Same field names in every row (JSON, CSV, Excel)	✅	❌
Date window in Beijing time, spread by day or hour	✅	❌
Only new rows on scheduled runs	✅	❌
Hot board rank and heat changes between runs	✅	❌
Price	$20.00 per 1,000 results on the Free plan, down to $14.00 on Business, plus start and platform usage	Your time

Can I do a Weibo search without account?

Yes. No mode needs a Weibo login, account or cookies, and there is no cookie field in the input. Because everything is read as a logged-out visitor, Weibo's logged-out limits apply: about 10 newest posts per user timeline, the first page of fan and following lists, and possible login walls on deep search pages, comment threads or liker lists. In those cases you get a partial result and a notice in the log.

Why scrape Weibo data?

• Brand health: see how people talk about your brand, your competitors and your category.
• Launch research: test messages and product ideas against real posts before entering China.
• Influencer marketing: shortlist creators by reach and engagement for a keyword.
• Trend spotting: follow what climbs the hot boards and which hashtags stick.
• Customer service: catch complaints on Black Cat and in comment threads early.
• Research and AI: build labeled Chinese text datasets with dates, regions and engagement.

Why am I getting fewer results than expected?

1. Check the run's status message and log. Weibo's logged-out limits (about 10 posts per user timeline, the first page of fans or followings) and login walls on deep pages often explain small numbers.
2. Look at your filters. 🎯 Only posts that contain the keyword, 📣 Promoted posts, 📈 Min followers, ✅ Verified creators only and 🆕 Only new rows all drop rows.
3. Check the date window. A narrow window on a quiet keyword simply has few posts.
4. On the Free plan, every run stops at 10 rows.
5. Open the 🧾 Run report to see what was not delivered and why.
6. If the run says "No results", check the links and keywords first. If Weibo limited the requests, run it again with Apify Proxy chosen in 🌐 Proxy, so the proxy is used from the first request instead of only after a block (see Proxy).

How do I find a Weibo user ID?

Open the profile on weibo.com. The number in a link like https://weibo.com/u/1749127163 is the Weibo user ID. Paste either the full link or just the number. Custom addresses like weibo.com/name are not resolved, so look for the numeric /u/ link.

Can I get the Weibo hot search today?

Yes. Pick Hot search boards (热搜) under 🚀 What to scrape and click Start. You get a snapshot of the boards at run time: rank, title, heat (hotValue), category, label, the pinned slot and promoted entries. The topic board and each entry's hashtag field show the Weibo trending topics and Weibo trending hashtags of the moment. Schedule the run every hour to build your own history.

How do I find the top Weibo influencers for a keyword?

Pick KOL / influencer discovery by keyword in 🚀 What to scrape (KOL = key opinion leader) and type your keyword. Weibo KOL discovery finds the creators who post about your keyword and ranks them by relevance and reach (kolScore, kolRank). Narrow the list with 📈 Min followers and ✅ Verified creators only, and keep 📐 Engagement metrics on to get average reposts, comments, likes and posting frequency.

Can Weibo Scraper collect followers?

Yes, with limits. As a Weibo followers scraper, the User fans and User followings modes return the first page (about 20 accounts) that Weibo shows to logged-out visitors. Each account comes as a user row with its followersCount, bio and verification.

Does Weibo Scraper download images or videos?

No. Post rows include image URLs (images) and, for video posts, videoUrl, videoDurationSec and videoPlayCount. The files themselves are not downloaded.

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Support and feedback

Found a bug or have a feature request? Please create an issue on the Issues tab. We're always working on improving Weibo Scraper.

Need a custom solution or more Weibo data? Contact us at hello.insights.data@gmail.com.

Built and maintained by Insights Data.