# Semrush Competitor (`pnda/semrush-competitor`) Actor

Get up to 200 real organic competitors for any domain: competition level, shared keywords, total ranking keywords, organic traffic, traffic value and paid-keyword overlap. 47 country markets, three sort strategies (competition, overlap, traffic). Clean flat data, pipeline-ready.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/pnda/semrush-competitor.md
- **Developed by:** [PNDA](https://apify.com/pnda) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce, Automation, SEO tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $10.00 / 1,000 results

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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## 🥊 Semrush Competitor Scraper — Discover Who You're *Really* Competing With in Google

Drop any domain in — get up to **200 real organic competitors** ranked by **competition level, shared keywords, total keywords, organic traffic, traffic value and paid keyword overlap**. Semrush competitive intelligence, on demand, pushed straight into an Apify dataset.

This Actor accepts a domain + market, handles authentication, and returns a clean, flat table of competitors ready for **JSON, CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, Looker Studio or GPT pipelines**. No Semrush login required.

***

### 💡 Who is it for?

- **SEO agencies & freelancers** scoping the true competitive set during onboarding.
- **Growth & content teams** building keyword-gap and content-gap analyses.
- **PPC managers** identifying who else is bidding on the same space.
- **Founders & product marketers** sizing a new market before launch.
- **M\&A and investor scouts** evaluating competitive density around a target.
- **Data teams** enriching CRM and BI dashboards with live competitive signals.

***

### ⚙️ How it works

You give the Actor a domain, a country database, and a sort order. It calls the Semrush Organic Competitors report, fetches up to 200 competitors and pushes each one as a structured row into the Apify dataset.

#### Sort modes

| Sort | Use it when… |
|---|---|
| **Competition Level** | You want the *closest* strategic competitors (highest keyword overlap ratio) |
| **Common Keywords** | You want the competitors with the *biggest shared footprint* |
| **Traffic** | You want the *biggest traffic players* in your space |

#### Coverage

47 country databases: 🇺🇸 US · 🇬🇧 UK · 🇨🇦 CA · 🇦🇺 AU · 🇫🇷 FR · 🇩🇪 DE · 🇮🇹 IT · 🇪🇸 ES · 🇧🇷 BR · 🇳🇱 NL · 🇯🇵 JP · 🇮🇳 IN · 🇸🇬 SG · 🇲🇽 MX · 🇦🇪 AE · and 32 more.

***

### 📥 Input

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `q` | string | ✅ | Domain to analyze (e.g. `example.com`) |
| `db` | string | ✅ | Country database code (`us`, `uk`, `fr`, `de`, …) |
| `sort_by` | string | — | `competition_level` (default), `common_keywords`, or `traffic` |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "q": "example.com",
  "db": "us",
  "sort_by": "competition_level"
}
```

***

### 📤 Output

Each competitor is pushed as one row. Example item:

```json
{
  "domain": "competitor.com",
  "competition_level": 0.43,
  "common_keywords": 77,
  "se_keywords": 945,
  "traffic": 3335,
  "traffic_cost": 2386,
  "paid_keywords": 4
}
```

#### Field reference

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `domain` | Competitor domain |
| `competition_level` | Overlap score (0 → 1) — how *close* the competitor is strategically |
| `common_keywords` | Number of keywords both domains rank for |
| `se_keywords` | Total organic keywords the competitor ranks for |
| `traffic` | Estimated monthly organic traffic |
| `traffic_cost` | Equivalent value of that traffic in paid search (USD) |
| `paid_keywords` | Number of keywords the competitor is also bidding on in Google Ads |

***

### 🚀 Why use this Actor

- ✅ **Up to 200 competitors per run** — the full ranked list, not just the top 5.
- ✅ **Three sort strategies** — switch between *closest*, *biggest overlap*, and *biggest traffic*.
- ✅ **47 country markets** — run per-region competitive maps in minutes.
- ✅ **Flat, typed schema** — plug straight into BigQuery, Postgres, Sheets or GPT.
- ✅ **No login, no scraping headaches** — authentication handled for you.
- ✅ **Pipeline-ready** — trigger from n8n, Make, Zapier, Apify Schedules or the Apify API.

***

### 💼 Use cases

- **Competitive mapping**: feed the domain list into a keyword-gap workflow for instant opportunity lists.
- **PPC overlap**: identify who is bidding on your organic space using `paid_keywords`.
- **Market sizing**: sum `traffic` across competitors to estimate total category demand.
- **Prospecting**: qualify clients by how crowded their competitive set is.
- **Benchmarking**: compare your `traffic_cost` vs. the top competitor every month.
- **GPT research**: feed the list into an LLM to auto-generate a competitive report.

***

### 🧩 Part of the Semrush suite

Chain this Actor with the rest of the suite for a full SEO workflow:

| Actor | What it does |
|---|---|
| 🥊 [Semrush Competitor](https://apify.com/pnda/semrush-competitor) | Up to 200 organic competitors and keyword overlap (this Actor) |
| 🔍 [Semrush Keyword](https://apify.com/pnda/semrush-keyword) | Keyword ideas — volume, CPC, difficulty, intent |
| 🌐 [Semrush Domain](https://apify.com/pnda/semrush-domain) | Full domain audit — authority, traffic, top keywords |
| 🔗 [Semrush Backlink Analytics](https://apify.com/pnda/semrush-backlink-analytics) | Authority-scored backlinks, anchors, referring domains |

***

### 💰 Pricing

**Pay-per-result** — you're charged **$0.010 per competitor returned**, plus a small per-run start fee. You only pay for competitors you actually receive.

| Competitors returned | Approx. cost |
|---|---|
| 25 | ~$0.25 |
| 100 | ~$1 |
| 200 (max) | ~$2 |

New users get free result credits to try the Actor before spending anything.

***

### ▶️ Start now

Enter a domain. Pick a country. Choose a sort order. Hit **Run**.
Your real organic competitors — ranked, structured, and ready to action.

# Actor input Schema

## `q` (type: `string`):

Domain name to analyze

## `db` (type: `string`):

Database/region code

## `sort_by` (type: `string`):

Sort results by

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "q": "example.com",
  "db": "us",
  "sort_by": "competition_level"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

All competitors returned by this run (JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, RSS).

# 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 = {
    "q": "example.com",
    "db": "us",
    "sort_by": "competition_level"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("pnda/semrush-competitor").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 = {
    "q": "example.com",
    "db": "us",
    "sort_by": "competition_level",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("pnda/semrush-competitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "q": "example.com",
  "db": "us",
  "sort_by": "competition_level"
}' |
apify call pnda/semrush-competitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=pnda/semrush-competitor",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/U59UVHMMeLUjHjGNa/builds/HFNljFltRabJH3oVS/openapi.json