Buzzsumo Alternative — Cited Content, Sentiment & Trends

Turn a topic or brand into Buzzsumo-style citation rows: cited articles, a one-row summary, phrase trends, sentiment slices, and publisher-domain content. Runs without a Buzzsumo login or cookie. Built for content teams and agents that want structured content research on Apify with API, schedule, and MCP access.

Best fit for this Actor

• Find cited articles for a topic such as content marketing, with publisher domain, snippet, citation score, and sentiment polarity.
• Score how a brand is discussed across news, blogs, and other indexed page types in one summary row.
• Chart citation volume by month, then keep the publishers that show up most often.

When you need live Google Search ads or organic SERP HTML instead of citation research, start with Google SERP All-in-One Scraper. After you pick stories to watch in news, continue with Google News Scraper.

Practical scenario

A content lead pastes content marketing, keeps mode on content_search, and runs the Actor. The dataset returns five rows with title, url, domain, citationScore, dominantSentiment, and facebookLikeCount when the index includes embed metrics. They then switch mode to content_summary to see total citations plus top publishing domains before pitching outreach. Unknown or empty matches finish SUCCEEDED with VALID_EMPTY and no content-record charge.

Quick start input

{
  "mode": "content_search",
  "keyword": "content marketing",
  "maxResults": 5,
  "searchMode": "one_per_domain"
}

keyword is the topic or brand. domain is only required for domain_content.

Input reference

Field	Type	What it controls
mode	enum	content_search, content_summary, phrase_trends, sentiment, or domain_content. Default content_search.
keyword	string	Topic or brand. Example: content marketing.
domain	string	Publisher hostname for domain_content. Example: hubspot.com.
maxResults	integer	Row cap 1–100. Default 5. Summary still writes at most one overview row.
searchMode	enum	one_per_domain (default) or as_is.
pageTypes	array	Optional ecommerce, news, blogs, message-boards, organization.
countryCode	string	Optional ISO country such as US.
dateFrom	string	yyyy-mm-dd start for phrase_trends. Defaults to six months back.
dateGroup	enum	month (default), week, or day.

Owner API credentials are already configured for Store runs. This Actor does not accept user API keys.

What data you receive

One dataset item is one cited article, summary, trend bucket, or sentiment slice.

{
  "mode": "content_search",
  "keyword": "content marketing",
  "url": "https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing",
  "domain": "hubspot.com",
  "title": "The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing",
  "snippet": "How teams plan, produce, and measure content that earns citations.",
  "citationScore": 5900.94,
  "dominantSentiment": "positive",
  "facebookLikeCount": 13,
  "source": "buzzsumo_alternative/content_search",
  "status": "OK",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-08-22T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Field	Meaning
citationScore	Prominence of this citation in the index, not a Buzzsumo viral score
facebookLikeCount	Indexed Facebook embed likes when present; not a live share graph
dominantSentiment	Highest of positive / negative / neutral on the citation text
source	Mode provenance label for the row

OUTPUT and RUN_SUMMARY in the default key-value store hold outcome, itemsPushed, chargedEventCounts, and providerCostUsd. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML.

Use through the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/khadinakbar~buzzsumo-alternative/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"content_search","keyword":"content marketing","maxResults":5}'

Use with AI agents through Apify MCP

Find Buzzsumo-style cited articles for content marketing. Return title, url, domain, citationScore, dominantSentiment, facebookLikeCount, source, and fetchedAt. Read OUTPUT.outcome and itemsPushed. Treat citationScore as an index prominence score rather than a Buzzsumo viral share count.

Connect via https://mcp.apify.com. Cost signal: about $0.06 per successful content API request plus $0.01 per saved row.

Connect the workflow

• For current news headlines after you pick a topic, continue with Google News Scraper.
• For search-interest over time instead of citation volume, continue with Google Trends Scraper.
• For live Google Search results and ads after you choose phrases, continue with Google SERP All-in-One Scraper.

Pricing

This Actor uses Pay per event plus Apify platform usage. The live Pricing tab is the current source of truth for billing details.

• apify-actor-start: $0.00005 per run
• content-api-request: $0.06 per successful upstream content API task
• content-record: $0.012 per persisted row

A cited-article prefill is one API task plus up to five rows. Empty matches have no content-record charge. Provider cost is recorded in RUN_SUMMARY.providerCostUsd.

How it works

1. Normalize the topic, domain, and filters for the selected mode.
2. Call the matching owner-managed content analysis endpoint for that mode.
3. Charge content-api-request after each successful task.
4. Charge content-record, then write each validated dataset row.

Best results

• Use a real topic such as content marketing rather than a Buzzsumo app URL.
• Keep maxResults at 5 while you confirm the output shape, then raise it for exports.
• Treat sentiment, citation scores, and Facebook likes as indexed estimates, not live social graphs.
• A valid query with no match finishes SUCCEEDED with VALID_EMPTY.

Builder's note

I found that classic Buzzsumo workflows still ask teams to sit in a login-walled app for “what content is cited around this topic,” while Store scrapers that promise viral Facebook shares leave share counts unread when platforms no longer expose them. Routing this SKU through owner-managed citation APIs keeps the Buzzsumo-shaped jobs (articles, summary, trends, sentiment, domain content) without claiming Buzzsumo viral scores, scraping Buzzsumo, or asking buyers for API keys. Facebook likes are only written when the citation index includes an embed metric.

Legal and responsible use

Use this Actor with public content research you are authorized to run. Metrics are independent of BuzzSumo / Brandwatch. Follow applicable law and the upstream data provider terms, and keep the output in your own compliance workflow.

Issues and feature requests: use the Actor Issues tab on Apify.