# Website Crawler (`elcon/website-crawler`) Actor

Crawls a website starting from one or more URLs and extracts the title, meta description, headings and text from each page.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/elcon/website-crawler.md
- **Developed by:** [elcon software](https://apify.com/elcon) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation
- **Stats:** 6 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Website Crawler (Apify Actor)

A simple [Apify](https://apify.com) actor built with [Crawlee](https://crawlee.dev) that crawls a website starting from one or more URLs and extracts, for each page:

- `url`, `title`, `description` (meta), `h1`
- all `h1/h2/h3` headings
- `wordCount` of the body text
- `depth` and `crawledAt`

It uses `CheerioCrawler` (fast, HTTP-only, no browser) so it's cheap to run.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `startUrls` | array | *required* | URLs to start crawling from. |
| `maxRequestsPerCrawl` | integer | `50` | Hard cap on pages visited. |
| `maxCrawlDepth` | integer | `2` | How many links deep to follow (`0` = start URLs only). |
| `sameDomainOnly` | boolean | `true` | Only follow links on the start URL's hostname. |

### Run locally

```bash
npm install
npm run start:dev
```

Local input is read from `storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json`.
Results are written to `storage/datasets/default/`.

### Build

```bash
npm run build      # compiles src -> dist
npm run start:prod # runs the compiled actor
```

### Deploy to Apify

See the step-by-step in the project chat, or in short:

1. Install the CLI: `npm install -g apify-cli`
2. `apify login`
3. From this folder: `apify push`

Alternatively, connect this Git repo in the Apify Console (**Actors → Create new → link Git repository**) and Apify will build from the `.actor/` config automatically.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

One or more URLs where the crawl should begin.

## `maxRequestsPerCrawl` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of pages the crawler will visit. Useful to keep runs cheap and bounded.

## `maxCrawlDepth` (type: `integer`):

How many links deep to follow from the start URLs. 0 means only the start URLs.

## `sameDomainOnly` (type: `boolean`):

If enabled, the crawler will only follow links that share the hostname of the start URL.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://crawlee.dev/"
    }
  ],
  "maxRequestsPerCrawl": 50,
  "maxCrawlDepth": 2,
  "sameDomainOnly": true
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://crawlee.dev/"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("elcon/website-crawler").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://crawlee.dev/" }] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("elcon/website-crawler").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://crawlee.dev/"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call elcon/website-crawler --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,elcon/website-crawler"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/QzCFq8wcMcXspn6xA/builds/sytQtYdfTuhdSdc73/openapi.json