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Apps Script

In shortGoogle's cloud-based JavaScript platform for automating Google Sheets and other Workspace apps, often used to call ML APIs from a spreadsheet without code.

Updated 24 Oct 2026· 2 min read

Apps Script is Google’s cloud-based scripting platform, built on JavaScript, that lets you automate and extend Google Sheets, Docs, Gmail, Drive and other Workspace apps. For marketers it is the bridge between a spreadsheet and an API: a short script lets a Sheets formula send your text to a machine learning service and write the results back into cells, with no software to install.

How it works

Every Google Sheet has a script editor under Extensions > Apps Script. The code you place there can do three useful things for SEO work:

  • Custom functions. You define a function in the script, then call it like any formula, for example =analyzeFeedback(A2), and it returns values into the sheet.
  • API calls. The built-in UrlFetchApp service sends requests to external APIs, such as the Google Cloud Natural Language API or the Knowledge Graph Search API, authenticated with your API key.
  • Triggers. Time-driven triggers run a function on a schedule (hourly, daily, weekly), which turns a one-off analysis into a monitoring job.

How it’s used in SEO and marketing

Most of the no-code templates on MLforSEO run on Apps Script. The workflow is always the same: copy the template, open Apps Script, paste your API key into the marked line, save, and run the formula down a column of text. Common uses include:

  • Entity extraction, sentiment analysis, text classification, syntax analysis and content moderation with Google’s Natural Language API directly in Sheets.
  • Fuzzy lookups between two lists (for example old and new URLs) as a Sheets function.
  • Scheduled checks on the entities that matter to you, such as re-querying the Knowledge Graph Search API each week to watch how your brand or competitors are represented.
  • Refreshing a keyword universe or reporting sheet automatically, so the Data Studio dashboard built on it stays current.

Example

In the MLforSEO sentiment template, the script defines a custom function that sends each cell’s text to the Natural Language API. Pasted next to a column of customer reviews, =TRANSPOSE(analyzeFeedback(A2)) returns the sentiment score, magnitude and a label such as “slightly negative”. Because the labels are set in the script, you can rename or regroup them to suit your project.

Limitations and things to watch

  • Execution limits apply. Google’s quota page lists 6 minutes per script execution and 30 seconds per custom function call, so very large sheets need batching or a Python notebook instead.
  • Your API key sits in the script. Restrict the key in Google Cloud and do not share a copy of the sheet with the key still inside.
  • API calls made from a sheet are billed like any other call once you pass the free tier, and recalculating formulas can repeat calls you have already paid for. Paste results as values once you have them.
  • Apps Script is fine for hundreds or a few thousand rows; for larger datasets MLforSEO’s Python notebooks are the better route.

Learn it on MLforSEO

Where Apps Script shows up on MLforSEO

Learn it in a course

Read about it on the blog

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Sources and further reading

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