Crawl
Crawl Website
Give MediaHarvester one starting URL and get back the pages your workflow actually needs, with crawl depth, source URL and status preserved for every result.
/v1/web/crawl
What you get
Developer-ready output for Crawl Website
Real workflows
Where teams use Crawl Website
These examples map to the endpoint's current inputs and outputs—not hypothetical platform features.
Crawl product docs or a help center on a schedule, then index the returned Markdown with each page URL attached.
Enumerate pages, depth and status before a CMS rebuild so content teams know what exists and what failed.
Collect a bounded set of same-domain pages for account research, due diligence or competitive review.
How it works
4 concrete steps from input to result
POST a starting URL
Discover links and sitemap URLs
Scrape each allowed page
Return results with metadata
API response
Fields developers usually wire first
Turn a public or authorized website into a structured set of source-aware pages for search, RAG, migration audits and research pipelines.
curl.exe -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" "http://127.0.0.1:8013/v1/web/crawl"
Developer FAQ
Common questions about Crawl Website
How do I limit a crawl?
Use maxPages, maxDepth and urlRegex together. That keeps the crawler focused on docs, pricing, blog or another path family instead of following every internal link.
Can I crawl subdomains?
Yes, enable followSubdomains when the job should move from a root domain to docs, help or app subdomains. Keep it off when you only want the starting host.
Is the crawl synchronous?
Small crawls can return immediately. Larger crawls should be treated as jobs so your app can poll status, store partial output and retry failed pages safely.
What endpoint should I call for Crawl Website?
Use POST /v1/web/crawl. Local development accepts the X-API-Key header with YOUR_API_KEY, and production clients can use the same shape with their own key.
Can I call it from CLI, SDK, MCP and no-code tools?
Yes. The same endpoint can be called with curl, the TypeScript SDK, Python SDK, MCP server, Zapier, Make, n8n, Google Sheets or Excel workflows where appropriate.
How does caching with maxAgeMs work?
When maxAgeMs is supported, a cached response can be reused if it is younger than the requested freshness window. Set maxAgeMs to 0 when you need a fresh scrape or extraction.
What happens when a page is blocked or requires login?
The API returns clear states such as blocked, verification_required, login_required, robots_disallowed or permission_required. It does not promise to bypass access controls.
Which response fields should I store?
Most integrations store results[].url, results[].markdown, results[].depth, metadata.numSucceeded, plus source URL, status, confidence and timestamp fields when present. Keep source metadata so users can audit values later.
Can I batch this endpoint?
For local or small workflows, loop over a list of URLs or domains. For larger jobs, use crawl, batch workflow endpoints or a queue so failures and retries are tracked cleanly.
How should I handle errors in production?
Check success, HTTP status, error.type and retryable flags. Retry timeouts and temporary network failures, but do not retry robots, login or permission errors without changing input or authorization.
Does the API work with JavaScript-heavy sites?
The engine router starts with fast fetching and escalates when content quality is low. Browser-style rendering is used where available, while access-control barriers are reported explicitly.
Is this safe to use with customer data?
Send only domains, URLs or fields your workflow needs. Use retention controls for generated artifacts and avoid storing unnecessary raw HTML, screenshots or extracted personal data.
Related data APIs
Build the next step in the workflow
GET /v1/web/scrape/html
Scrape Markdown
Convert webpages into clean, source-linked Markdown for AI agents, research notes and retrieval pipelines while keeping link and image controls explicit.
GET /v1/web/scrape/markdown
Meta Title and Description
Extract title, description, canonical, language, Open Graph and Twitter metadata for SEO QA, link previews and lightweight URL enrichment.
GET /v1/web/meta
Scrape Images
Discover page images across img, picture, lazy-loading, CSS backgrounds, inline SVG and video poster sources, then normalize them into usable media records.
GET /v1/web/scrape/images
Royalty-Free Image Finder
Search curated stock-image providers for reusable visual candidates, with provider and license context kept alongside every result.
POST /v1/royalty-free-images/search
Image OCR
Extract text from screenshots, scans and image files through a Paddle-first OCR chain with structured line output and a local fallback engine.
POST /v1/ocr/json
YouTube Transcript
Retrieve timestamped YouTube transcript text through multiple local fallback methods for research, indexing and content analysis.
POST /v1/youtube/transcript
Scrape Sitemap
Discover site URLs from robots.txt, sitemap indexes and XML sitemaps with recursive parsing, filtering and link limits.
GET /v1/web/scrape/sitemap