# AI Website Content Extractor (`scrapeai/ai-website-content-extractor`) Actor

Crawl website pages, strip noise, and convert the main content to clean Markdown for RAG/LLM training.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/scrapeai/ai-website-content-extractor.md
- **Developed by:** [ScrapeAI](https://apify.com/scrapeai) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools, Automation
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 7 total users, 1 monthly users, 99.5% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: 5.00 out of 5 stars

## Pricing

from $2.49 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## AI Website Content Extractor

Apify Actor that crawls one or more website pages using Playwright, removes navigation, ads, and other noise, then converts the main content to clean **Markdown** — ready for RAG pipelines, vector databases, and LLM training datasets.

### Features

- Crawl any public website page(s)
- Automatically dismiss cookie / consent dialogs
- Strip navigation bars, headers, footers, sidebars, ads, and modals
- Detect the main content area using semantic HTML selectors (`main`, `article`, `[role="main"]`, etc.)
- Convert HTML to clean Markdown via `turndown`
- Skip low-content pages (login walls, redirects) automatically
- Outputs a structured dataset ready for AI use-cases

### Input

| Field | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| startUrls | Array | List of `{url}` objects or plain URL strings to crawl | `[{url: "https://example.com"}]` |
| maxPages | Number | Maximum number of pages to process | `20` |
| proxyConfiguration | Object | Apify proxy settings (optional) | `{}` |

### Example Input

```json
{
    "startUrls": [
        { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence" },
        { "url": "https://openai.com/blog" }
    ],
    "maxPages": 10
}
```

### Output

Each extracted page produces one dataset record:

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| url | String | URL of the crawled page |
| title | String | Page `<title>` |
| markdown | String | Clean Markdown of the main content |
| text  | String |
| wordCount | Number | Approximate word count of the Markdown |
| extractedAt | String | ISO 8601 timestamp |

### Example Output

```json
{
    "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence",
    "title": "Artificial intelligence - Wikipedia",
    "markdown": "# Artificial intelligence\n\nArtificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence...",
    "text": "Example Domain\n\nThis domain is for use in documentation examples without needing permission. Avoid use in operations.\n\nLearn more",	
    "wordCount": 4312,
    "extractedAt": "2026-03-13T08:00:00.000Z"
}
```

### Use Cases

- **RAG pipelines** — ingest Markdown directly into your vector store
- **LLM fine-tuning** — build clean text corpora from any website
- **AI chatbots** — feed domain knowledge to your assistant
- **Research** — extract and archive article content at scale

### Tips

- Supply multiple `startUrls` to crawl several pages in one run
- Increase `maxPages` to crawl an entire site (combine with Apify's link-following features)
- For authenticated pages, configure a proxy or session in `proxyConfiguration`

### Public HTTP content extraction

The current implementation extracts observed page text, title, metadata, headings, links, images and JSON-LD through bounded HTTP requests. It does not generate missing facts or run an LLM. Supply startUrls, maxItems, maxPages, maxDepth and concurrency. A zero depth extracts only supplied pages; higher depths crawl the same origins unless includeExternalLinks is enabled. Unsupported binary documents and access challenge pages produce diagnostics, not fabricated records.

# Actor input Schema

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

Public pages to extract.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum distinct page records.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Bounds all HTTP page requests.

## `maxDepth` (type: `integer`):

Zero extracts only the supplied URLs.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Maximum simultaneous HTTP requests.

## `includeHtml` (type: `boolean`):

Include the source HTML in addition to extracted text.

## `includeExternalLinks` (type: `boolean`):

Allow links outside the starting origins.

## `maxTextLength` (type: `integer`):

Maximum observed text characters per page.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional proxy used after a direct HTTP request fails.

## `targetInput` (type: `object`):

Legacy input fields remain accepted.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/"
    }
  ],
  "maxItems": 10,
  "maxPages": 30,
  "maxDepth": 0,
  "concurrency": 4,
  "includeHtml": false,
  "includeExternalLinks": false,
  "maxTextLength": 500000
}
```

# 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://docs.python.org/3/"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("scrapeai/ai-website-content-extractor").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://docs.python.org/3/" }] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("scrapeai/ai-website-content-extractor").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://docs.python.org/3/"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call scrapeai/ai-website-content-extractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/cBKOSlbrRzS53N0sJ/builds/MT2MahGJZeYXG7oCi/openapi.json