# Google News Monitor: Brand & Topic Alerts, Only New Articles (`steady-scrape/google-news-monitor`) Actor

Monitor Google News for brands, companies or topics. Each scheduled run returns only articles that are new since the last run: title, source, publish date and original link. No duplicates, no article scraping.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/steady-scrape/google-news-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [SteadyScrape](https://apify.com/steady-scrape) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Automation, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 new articles

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

## Google News Monitor: Brand & Topic Alerts, Only New Articles

**Who it's for:** PR teams, agencies, founders and analysts who want a news alert feed for brands, companies or topics without re-reading the same headlines every day.

**What you get:** For each query, Google News articles with **title, source, publish time and original link**. Scheduled runs return **only articles that are new since the last run** of the same Monitor ID. Metadata only: no article text is scraped.

**Price:** $0.004 per query checked + $0.002 per new article returned + $0.005 once per run. First-run baseline articles are free (the query check is charged); failed or timed-out queries are free.

Made by **SteadyScrape (steady-scrape)**.

### What you can do with it

1. **Brand monitoring.** Watch your company and product names; get only new coverage each morning.
2. **Competitor & industry watch.** Track competitors or topics (e.g. "electric vehicles") per country and language.
3. **Alerts into your tools.** Schedule it in Apify and send new rows to Slack, email, Make, Zapier or n8n with an Apify integration or webhook.
4. **One-off news search.** Mode `oneOff` returns the current top results without memory.

### How "only new" works

- Each **Monitor ID** keeps a memory per query + location + language (stored in your Apify account, named store `google-news-monitor-state`).
- **First run:** records a baseline and returns no article rows (turn on *Return current articles on the first run* to get them).
- **Later runs:** an article is new if its link (normalised: tracking parameters, `www.`/AMP variants removed) or its title on the same site hasn't been seen before.
- A query that fails or times out doesn't update the memory, so its articles come back on the next run.
- Use a different Monitor ID per schedule or client. Running the same Monitor ID twice at the same time can produce duplicates.
- Memory keeps the latest 5,000 articles per query.

### Input

```json
{
  "queries": ["OpenAI", "\"electric vehicles\""],
  "mode": "monitor",
  "monitorId": "daily-brand-watch",
  "location": "United States",
  "language": "en",
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 10
}
```

- **queries**: plain words or "exact phrases" (advanced operators like `site:` are rejected).
- **maxResultsPerQuery**: top results checked per query (10 = one page, max 100).
- **excludeDomains**: drop publishers you don't want.
- **mock**: test mode with sample data, never charged.

### Finance preset: company & stock news by ticker

Track news for the companies in a watchlist or portfolio. Add `financeCompanies`, one per line as `TICKER: Company name`:

```json
{ "financeCompanies": ["AAPL: Apple", "TSLA: Tesla", "NVDA: Nvidia"], "mode": "monitor", "monitorId": "portfolio-news" }
```

- Each company becomes **one** Google News query (`"Apple" stock`) and is billed as one query checked, like any other query. 3 companies = 3 queries.
- Article rows and the run summary carry `ticker` and `company`, so you can route alerts per holding.
- The company name is required: a bare ticker like `AAPL` is ambiguous on Google News and is rejected (free).
- Up to 50 companies per run; can be combined with normal `queries`.
- News headlines, sources and links only. No stock prices, no market data, no investment advice.

### Output

One dataset row per new article: `query`, `title`, `source`, `domain`, `url`, `canonicalUrl`, `snippet`, `publishedAt` (UTC, when an exact time is given), `publishedText` (e.g. "2 hours ago"), `imageUrl`, `rank`, `isTopStory`, `firstSeenAt`, `monitorId`.

The run `OUTPUT` record lists every query with its status: `ok`, `baseline`, `failed` (not charged) or `skipped`.

### Pricing

| Event | Price | When |
|---|---|---|
| `query-checked` | $0.004 | per query answered (also when nothing new was found) |
| `new-article` | $0.002 | per article row returned |
| `actor-start` | $0.005 | once per run, only if at least one query was answered |
| `apify-actor-start` | $0.00005 | Apify's standard per-run start event |

Example: 10 queries in one daily run with ~3 new articles each ≈ $3.15/month. Invalid input, failed or timed-out queries, baseline articles and test mode are free.

### Limits

- Runs typically take 1–2 minutes (results come from a standard data queue).

- Results are Google News search results for your query, location and language, not every article published.

- Metadata only: no article text, no paywall or login access.

- Free Apify plan: up to 5 queries per run and a daily limit.

### FAQ

**Why did my first run return no articles?** The first run of a Monitor ID records a baseline (free articles, query charged). Turn on *Return current articles on the first run* (`firstRunEmitsAll`) to get them, or use `oneOff` mode.
**Will I get duplicates?** The same story at a different URL is matched by normalised link and by title on the same site. Running the same Monitor ID twice at the same time can still produce duplicates.
**Does it return full article text?** No. It returns metadata only (title, source, time, link, snippet when available).
**Can I monitor several clients?** Yes. Use a different `monitorId` per client or schedule.

### Integrations

- **Apify API and SDKs:** call it from Python, JavaScript or any HTTP client and read results from the run's dataset.
- **Schedules and webhooks:** run it on a schedule in Apify and trigger your own endpoint when a run finishes.
- **Make, Zapier, n8n:** use Apify's own integrations for these tools to start runs and pass dataset rows on.
- **AI agents (MCP):** agents can call it through the Apify MCP server.

### Data source & terms

News results and metadata are sourced from Google News via the DataForSEO API. The service is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. Data is provided for monitoring and analytics of the topics the customer selects, and may not be used to create a service that competes with general search engines. The service is not offered to customers in Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea, or occupied Crimea.

### More from SteadyScrape

- [AI Brand Visibility Tracker: ChatGPT & Perplexity](https://apify.com/steady-scrape/ai-brand-visibility-tracker): see whether ChatGPT and Perplexity mention, rank and cite your brand versus competitors.
- [Google Trends Scraper & API: Breakout Alerts](https://apify.com/steady-scrape/google-trends-api): Google Trends interest, momentum and breakout queries for the topics you watch.
- [Competitor Hiring Tracker: Open Roles by Company](https://apify.com/steady-scrape/company-hiring-signals): open roles and hiring trends per company, another public signal next to their news coverage.
- [Polymarket Scraper & Odds API: Prediction Markets](https://apify.com/steady-scrape/prediction-markets): prediction-market odds as a time series, to compare with the news that moves them.

See every **SteadyScrape (steady-scrape)** Actor on [our Apify profile](https://apify.com/steady-scrape).

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

Brands, companies or topics, one per line (plain words or "exact phrases"; advanced operators like site: are not supported).

## `financeCompanies` (type: `array`):

Track company/stock news by ticker. One per line as 'TICKER: Company name', e.g. 'AAPL: Apple', 'TSLA: Tesla'. Each company becomes one query ("Company" stock) and is billed as one query. A bare ticker is not accepted (too ambiguous). News headlines and links only; no stock prices or financial advice. Max 50.

## `mode` (type: `string`):

Monitor remembers articles per Monitor ID and returns only new ones on later runs.

## `monitorId` (type: `string`):

Name of this watch list's memory. Use a different ID per schedule/client. Letters, digits, . \_ - (max 64). A new ID starts fresh.

## `firstRunEmitsAll` (type: `boolean`):

Off (default): the first run of a Monitor ID only records a baseline (no article rows, no article charges). On: the first run returns (and charges) all current articles.

## `location` (type: `string`):

Country or region name, e.g. United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Costa Rica.

## `language` (type: `string`):

Language code, e.g. en, es, de, fr, pt.

## `maxResultsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

How many top Google News results to check per query (10 = one page).

## `excludeDomains` (type: `array`):

Publisher domains to drop, e.g. example.com (subdomains included).

## `mock` (type: `boolean`):

Returns sample data without checking Google News. Never charged.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "OpenAI",
    "electric vehicles"
  ],
  "mode": "monitor",
  "monitorId": "default",
  "firstRunEmitsAll": false,
  "location": "United States",
  "language": "en",
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 10,
  "mock": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `articles` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (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 = {
    "queries": [
        "OpenAI",
        "electric vehicles"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("steady-scrape/google-news-monitor").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 = { "queries": [
        "OpenAI",
        "electric vehicles",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("steady-scrape/google-news-monitor").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 '{
  "queries": [
    "OpenAI",
    "electric vehicles"
  ]
}' |
apify call steady-scrape/google-news-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,steady-scrape/google-news-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/O3aDhzfUTNbFGAX0b/builds/SPGYfrVezklKJxQoe/openapi.json