Southwest News Scraper

Scrapes structured public construction project data from Southwest Construction News using keywords and a date range.

Overview

This actor automates the collection of construction project leads from the Southwest Construction News website. It searches for user-provided keywords within a specified date range and extracts key project details into a structured dataset. This is useful for bidding, market research, and competitive analysis in the Southwest US construction industry.

Key Features

• Keyword & Date Search: Searches for projects containing specific keywords within a custom date range.
• Structured Data Extraction: Parses and returns clean data for each matching project.
• Configurable Limits: Optionally limit the number of records returned per keyword.
• Multiple Output Formats: Results are available in JSON, CSV, or Excel via the Apify dataset.

How to Use

1. Run the actor on the Apify platform (click "Try for free") or locally using the Apify CLI.
2. Configure the input with your search parameters (keywords, date range, optional record limit).
3. Start the run.
4. Download your scraped data from the Dataset tab in your preferred format.

Input

Configure the actor using the following input fields:

Example Input:

{
  "keywords": ["waterline", "sdr"],
  "start_date": "1/1/2020",
  "end_date": "12/31/2023",
  "max_records_per_keyword": 10
}

Output

The actor stores results in the default dataset. Each item is a structured object containing the following fields:

{
  "Keyword": "waterline",
  "ENGRjob": "12345",
  "Bid Date": "2/15/2023",
  "Project Name": "Main Street Waterline Replacement",
  "Project County": "Oklahoma",
  "Project Location": "Oklahoma City",
  "Project Includes": "PVC, trenching, valves"
}

Tips

• Use specific, relevant keywords for more targeted results.
• Narrow the date range to focus on recent or historical projects.
• A higher max_records_per_keyword value will return more data but may increase run time.

Legal Notice

This actor scrapes publicly available data only. Ensure your use case complies with the target website's terms of service and relevant data protection laws. Do not use it to collect personal data without a proper legal basis.

Need Help?

For questions or issues, use the Apify platform's support or open an issue in the actor's repository.