Starter Scraper
by tylerkimbel5
A straightforward, reliable web scraper for developers. Perfect for quick data extraction, testing, or as a foundation for more complex projects.
Opens on Apify.com
About Starter Scraper
Look, sometimes you just need to get data from a website without the fuss. That's exactly what the Starter Scraper is for. Think of it as your reliable, no-frills toolkit for web scraping. It handles the fundamentals—fetching pages, parsing HTML, and extracting structured data—so you can focus on building your project. I use it for quick data pulls, testing website structures, or when I need a clean foundation to build a more custom scraper on top of. It's straightforward, runs reliably on the Apify platform, and gives you a JSON output that's easy to work with. Perfect for developers who need to validate an idea, gather sample datasets, or automate a simple collection task without configuring a complex setup from scratch. It just works, and that's the point.
What does this actor do?
Starter Scraper is a web scraping and automation tool available on the Apify platform. It's designed to help you extract data and automate tasks efficiently in the cloud.
Key Features
- Cloud-based execution - no local setup required
- Scalable infrastructure for large-scale operations
- API access for integration with your applications
- Built-in proxy rotation and anti-blocking measures
- Scheduled runs and webhooks for automation
How to Use
- Click "Try This Actor" to open it on Apify
- Create a free Apify account if you don't have one
- Configure the input parameters as needed
- Run the actor and download your results
Documentation
Starter Scraper
A JavaScript (Node.js) template for scraping data from a single web page. You provide a URL via input, and the actor fetches the page, parses it, and stores the extracted data. It's designed as a starting point you can modify to scrape different types of data.
Overview
This actor is a basic web scraper built on Apify's platform. It uses Axios to fetch HTML and Cheerio to parse it. By default, it extracts all heading elements (h1 through h6) from the provided URL and saves them to an Apify dataset. The code is simple and intended to be customized for your specific scraping needs.
Key Features
- Apify SDK: Provides the backbone for building and running the actor.
- Input Schema: Validates the input, which requires a
urlfield. - Dataset Storage: Outputs structured data (like JSON) to an Apify dataset for easy access and export.
- Axios Client: A reliable, promise-based HTTP client for fetching web pages.
- Cheerio: A fast, jQuery-like library for parsing and traversing HTML.
Input/Output
Input: The actor expects a JSON input containing the url of the page to scrape.
{
"url": "https://example.com"
}
Output: Data is saved to the actor's default dataset. By default, each item includes the text and tag name of a heading element. You can change the output structure by modifying the parsing logic in the code.
How to Use
Basic Usage (Apify Console)
- Build: Create a new actor in your Apify Console and use this template as the source code.
- Run: Configure the input with your target URL and start the actor. The results will be available in the dataset tab.
Local Development
To develop locally, pull the actor using the Apify CLI:
-
Install the CLI:
bash npm -g install apify-cli
or
bash brew install apify-cli -
Pull the actor using its unique name or ID (found in the Apify Console):
bash apify pull <ActorId>
How It Works (Code Flow)
The main logic follows these steps:
1. Fetches the input configuration using Actor.getInput().
2. Uses axios.get(url) to retrieve the HTML of the target page.
3. Loads the HTML into Cheerio with cheerio.load(response.data) for parsing.
4. Extracts data. The default code selects headings:
javascript
$("h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6").each((_i, element) => {
// Process each element
});
5. Saves the extracted data using Actor.pushData().
To scrape different data, modify the Cheerio selector and data extraction logic in step 4.
Resources
Categories
Common Use Cases
Market Research
Gather competitive intelligence and market data
Lead Generation
Extract contact information for sales outreach
Price Monitoring
Track competitor pricing and product changes
Content Aggregation
Collect and organize content from multiple sources
Ready to Get Started?
Try Starter Scraper now on Apify. Free tier available with no credit card required.
Start Free TrialActor Information
- Developer
- tylerkimbel5
- Pricing
- Paid
- Total Runs
- 126
- Active Users
- 6
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