# How can I search Weibo posts by keyword without a login cookie?

> Search Weibo by keyword from code with no Weibo account, cookie or QR login: the endpoint, price per page, a curl example, and when a cookie crawler still wins.

Canonical page: https://okdata.online/answers/weibo-search-without-cookie/

**Short answer: **Use Weibo post search (/v1/weibo/posts/search) with an API key and no Weibo login: send a keyword, get posts with text, author, reposts, comments and likes. Each page of about 10 posts costs $0.002, and 1,000 posts take 100 calls, $0.20 in total.

Most open-source Weibo crawlers start the same way: log in to Weibo in a browser, copy the cookie, paste it into a config file. The cookie expires after a while, the job fails at 3 am, and an account that searches hard enough can get restricted. If all you need is posts that match a keyword, you can skip the account entirely. okdata takes an API key, runs the search on public Weibo data and returns clean JSON.

## The endpoint

[Weibo post search](/apis/weibo/posts/search/) has two parameters that matter:

- `query`: the keywords, typed as you would type them into Weibo's search box. Chinese works as is.
- `sort`: `hot` (the default) for posts with the most engagement, or `latest` for newest first.

Each post comes back with `text`, `published_at`, `url`, the author's ID, name, follower count and verification, `metrics.likes`, `metrics.comments`, `metrics.reposts`, images and hashtags. Video posts also carry a play count in `metrics.views` where Weibo shows one.

## Price

| You want | Calls | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| One page | 1 | $0.002 |
| 200 posts | 20 | $0.04 |
| 1,000 posts | 100 | $0.20 |

Errors are not charged: a bad parameter, a busy upstream or a timeout all cost nothing.

## curl

```bash
curl -s -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/weibo/posts/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "query=新能源 车展" \
  -d sort=latest \
  -d fields=id,text,published_at,author.name,metrics

# next page: pass page.next_cursor back
curl -s -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/weibo/posts/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "query=新能源 车展" -d sort=latest \
  --data-urlencode "cursor=<page.next_cursor>"
```

If you get `rate_limited`, wait the number of seconds in the `Retry-After` header and send the same request again. The full list of error codes and which ones to retry is on [errors](/docs/errors/).

## What you give up without a login

- Comments, a user's own timeline and single-post lookups are not in the catalog. Search, the hot search board and account profiles are.
- Long posts can be cut short in search results. Ask for `view=full` and check `ext.is_long_text`; the full text is on the post's page.
- Search shows what Weibo's search shows. Posts hidden from search will not appear here either.
- Fields Weibo does not expose, such as shares and favorites, are null and listed in `meta.unavailable`.

## When a cookie or the official route is better

- If you need comment threads or a full account timeline, a cookie-based crawler such as weibo-crawler or MediaCrawler gets them. Use a spare account and a slow pace.
- Weibo's open platform offers keyword search to verified developers on a plan. Choose it when your company needs a contract with Weibo itself.
- For a dozen posts, the Weibo app is free.

To run the same search from Claude or another agent, connect the [MCP server](/mcp/).

## Endpoints used

- [Weibo post search](https://okdata.online/apis/weibo/posts/search/) `weibo.posts.search`: $0.002 per call · about 10 posts per page

Updated 2026-11-12