Douyin Hot Search Scraper

Turn Douyin (抖音) live 热榜 boards into one dataset row per unique trending topic — rank, hot value, video count, cover image, and event time. Built for China-market researchers, brand monitors, and AI agents that need a structured hot-search pulse without a Douyin login.

Best fit for this Actor

• Start with the hotspot board when you need Douyin's main public 热点榜 pulse.
• Pair this Actor with keyword video search when a topic spike needs the videos behind it.
• Continue with creator profile enrichment when a trend points to a specific account.

Practical scenario

A social-listening analyst schedules a morning run with boards = ["hotspot", "social"] and maxResultsPerBoard = 30. The dataset returns unique topics with rank, 热度 (hotValue), video count, cover URL, and eventTime. Topics that appear on both boards are saved once and billed once. The analyst exports CSV into a daily trend sheet, then passes a word into Douyin search for the videos behind a spike.

Quick start input

{
  "boards": ["hotspot"],
  "maxResultsPerBoard": 20
}

boards selects which public Douyin hot-search lists to request. maxResultsPerBoard caps each board (1–60). Prefill 20 keeps quality tests cheap.

Multi-board example

{
  "boards": ["hotspot", "seeding", "entertainment", "social", "challenge"],
  "maxResultsPerBoard": 50
}

Input reference

Field	Type	What it controls
boards	string[]	Boards to request: hotspot, seeding, entertainment, social, challenge. Default ["hotspot"].
maxResultsPerBoard	integer	Cap per board (1–60). Prefill 20 for cheap quality tests.
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional Apify proxy. Direct HTTP is the default path.

What data you receive

One dataset item is one unique trending topic (cross-board sentenceId dedupe).

{
  "type": "trending",
  "board": "hotspot",
  "rank": 1,
  "word": "今天是教师节",
  "hotValue": 12157519,
  "videoCount": 15,
  "viewCount": null,
  "coverImageUrl": "https://p26-sign.douyinpic.com/example~noop.jpeg",
  "eventTime": "2026-09-10T05:11:26.000Z",
  "boardActiveTime": "2026-09-10 21:12:04",
  "sentenceId": "2642852",
  "provider": "douyin-web",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-10T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Field	Meaning
board / rank / word	Board that first returned the topic, 1-based rank, topic text
hotValue / videoCount / viewCount	Public 热度 and related counts when Douyin exposes them
coverImageUrl / eventTime / boardActiveTime	Cover URL and board timing fields
sentenceId / provider / scrapedAt	Dedupe id, source label, and collection time (provenance)

OUTPUT and RUN_SUMMARY in the default key-value store hold outcome, itemsPushed, and chargedEventCounts.

Use through the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/khadinakbar~douyin-hot-search-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"boards":["hotspot"],"maxResultsPerBoard":20}'

Download rows as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML from the Dataset tab. The Store slug is khadinakbar/douyin-hot-search-scraper.

Use with AI agents through Apify MCP

Fetch Douyin hotspot board topics with maxResultsPerBoard 20. Return rank, word, hotValue, videoCount, coverImageUrl, eventTime, and scrapedAt. Read OUTPUT.outcome and the dataset for readback; keep source provenance on provider and sentenceId. Cost signal: about $0.005 per unique hot-topic plus platform usage. Keep scope to public hot-search boards; for keyword videos or creator profiles, continue with the sibling Actors.

Connect via https://mcp.apify.com. Inspect the terminal outcome before treating an empty dataset as an outage — empty challenge boards often finish as a valid empty board outcome.

Connect the workflow

• After you have a trending word, search Douyin videos with Douyin Search Scraper.
• When a trend points to a creator, enrich the account with Douyin Profile Scraper.
• For global TikTok hashtag trends instead of Douyin 热榜, start with TikTok Trending Hashtags 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
• hot-topic: $0.005 per unique trending topic

A 20-topic hotspot sample is about $0.10 in result events plus platform usage. Cross-board duplicates are billed once.

How it works

1. Warm a short HTTP session against douyin.com.
2. Request Douyin's public hot-search list for each selected board (board_type / board_sub_type).
3. Prefer the web list endpoint, then fall back to the public snssdk list route when needed.
4. Validate topics, dedupe by sentenceId, charge hot-topic, then write the dataset row.

Best results

• Start with hotspot only to confirm the data shape before adding secondary boards.
• Cap maxResultsPerBoard when you only need the top of the board.
• Schedule runs for a steady pulse rather than high-concurrency bursts.
• Treat signed cover URLs as short-lived; download soon if you need durable assets.
• When your region needs a China-reachable path, enable Apify Residential in proxyConfiguration.

Builder's note

I found that Douyin's public hot-search list still returns live 热点榜 JSON over unsigned HTTP after a short douyin.com warmup, even when keyword search is CAPTCHA-walled from non-CN residential pools. In my testing, unsigned secondary board selectors can collapse onto overlapping lists, and the challenge board is often empty — so this Actor stays HTTP-only with snssdk as a bounded fallback, dedupes by sentenceId before charging, and records honest board-level empty outcomes instead of fabricating topics.

Responsible use

Use this Actor on publicly available Douyin hot-search rankings you are authorized to process, follow applicable laws and Douyin's terms of service, and keep outputs inside your own compliance workflow.

Douyin is a trademark of its owner. This independent Actor is not affiliated with, associated with, or endorsed by Douyin or ByteDance.

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