SEOmatic on Apify: Site Audits and AI Articles

SEOmatic SEO Tools is a public actor on the Apify Store (seomatic/seomatic-seo-tools). It runs two of SEOmatic's one-off products:

• Technical SEO auditof 1 to 10 URLs, crawled with SEOmatic's own crawler. It reports what a single-page check cannot see: duplicate and missing titles and meta descriptions, pages without exactly one H1, thin content, noindex pages, canonicals pointing elsewhere, dead pages, redirects, broken internal links (link targets are checked) and slow pages.
• AI-written SEO articleon your topic, researched against what currently ranks for it when search data is available, written, and checked by SEOmatic's quality gate. It is delivered as markdown and HTML with an AI-search score. An article that does not pass the gate is not delivered, and only the $0.50 start fee is charged.

Run it from the Apify console, the Apify API, a schedule, or any Apify integration, like any other actor.

1. Open the actor. Open SEOmatic SEO Tools on the Apify Store and sign in to Apify.
2. Pick a product. Choose Technical SEO audit and list 1 to 10 URLs, or AI-written SEO article and enter a topic.
3. Set the run limits. Set Maximum cost per run to at least $1 for an audit and $9 for an article. For an article, keep the timeout at 25 minutes or more.
4. Start the run. Click Start. An audit returns in one pass; an article usually takes a few minutes and the actor waits for it.
5. Read the result. Open the Output tab: the Audits or Articles view, or all results as JSON. Articles are also saved as article.md and article.html in the key-value store.

Open SEOmatic SEO Tools on Apify

Pay per event on Apify, no subscription. An audit costs $1. An article costs $9: $0.50 when it starts and $8.50 when it is delivered.

Before any work, the actor checks that the run's maximum cost covers what the run can charge, so it never starts work it cannot bill. Set Maximum cost per run to at least $1 for an audit and $9 for an article.

Authenticate with your Apify API token (Apify console, Settings, API & Integrations). An audit fits the synchronous endpoint, which waits for the run and returns the dataset items; it answers 408 if a run takes longer than 300 seconds, in which case use the asynchronous flow below.

export APIFY_TOKEN=apify_api_...

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/seomatic~seomatic-seo-tools/run-sync-get-dataset-items?maxTotalChargeUsd=2&view=audits" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"product": "audit", "urls": ["https://example.com", "https://example.com/pricing"]}'

An article takes minutes, so start the run, wait for it, then read the dataset:

# 1. Start the run: 30-minute timeout, $10 cost limit.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/seomatic~seomatic-seo-tools/runs?timeout=1800&maxTotalChargeUsd=10" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"product": "article", "topic": "how to choose trail running shoes"}'
# data.id is the run id, data.defaultDatasetId the dataset id.

# 2. Wait. Repeat until data.status is SUCCEEDED, FAILED, TIMED-OUT or ABORTED.
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/$RUN_ID?waitForFinish=60" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

# 3. Read the article (all fields, including html).
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/$DATASET_ID/items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

When a run fails, its data.statusMessage holds the message from the errors table below, including what was charged.

With the official apify-client package (npm):

import { ApifyClient } from "apify-client";

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

// call() starts the run and waits for it to finish.
const run = await client.actor("seomatic/seomatic-seo-tools").call(
  { product: "audit", urls: ["https://example.com", "https://example.com/pricing"] },
  { maxTotalChargeUsd: 2 },
);
if (run.status !== "SUCCEEDED") throw new Error(run.statusMessage);

const { items } = await client
  .dataset(run.defaultDatasetId)
  .listItems({ view: "audits" });
const [audit] = items;
console.log(audit.status, audit.issue_count, audit.issues);

For an article, pass { product: "article", topic: "..." } with { maxTotalChargeUsd: 10, timeout: 1800 } and read the items without a view to get the HTML too.

With the official apify-client package (PyPI, version 3, Python 3.11 or later):

import os
from datetime import timedelta
from decimal import Decimal

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])

# call() starts the run and waits for it to finish.
run = client.actor("seomatic/seomatic-seo-tools").call(
    run_input={"product": "article", "topic": "how to choose trail running shoes"},
    max_total_charge_usd=Decimal("10"),
    run_timeout=timedelta(minutes=30),
)
if run is None or run.status != "SUCCEEDED":
    raise RuntimeError(run.status_message if run else "run did not start")

article = client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).list_items().items[0]
print(article["title"], article["word_count"])
with open("article.html", "w") as f:
    f.write(article["html"] or "")

For an audit, pass run_input={"product": "audit", "urls": [...]} with max_total_charge_usd=Decimal("2") and read list_items(view="audits").

Each run adds one item to its default dataset: an audit report or a finished article. An item is written only when it is charged.

Audit

issues holds one list per type:

Article

The article is also saved as article.md and article.htmlin the run's key-value store, ready to download.

The run's Output tab links to the audit report, the article, or all results. The two views are also available to the API as view=audits and view=articles:

The Articles view leaves out the HTML. Read the items without a view, or download article.html, to get it.

• Audits: 10 different URLs per run. Pages are crawled within a time budget; if it runs out, the result is marked partial and says how many pages were not crawled.
• Articles: one per run, written in English. Set the run timeout to 25 minutes or more: the actor does not start an article with less than 22 minutes of run time left, and gives up after 20 minutes of generation (or shortly before the run timeout) without charging the article event.
• A daily limit on failed articles applies to each Apify user separately. Reaching it stops the run before any work, and nothing is charged.

A failed run shows one of these messages as its status message. Each one also says what was charged, at the end or where <what was charged> stands: Nothing was charged. or Only the article start fee ($0.5) was charged; it covers the work already begun.

• SEOmatic SEO Tools on the Apify Store: the actor page on Apify.
• Pay as you go: SEOmatic articles without a subscription, bought directly.
• REST API: the same audit and articles from your own code, with a SEOmatic key.
• Make, Zapier and n8n: SEOmatic in other automation platforms.