Bizcommunity Company Directory Scraper

Scrape Bizcommunity company directory pages into clean lead lists with company names, profile URLs, websites, contact links, descriptions, logos, and source metadata.

What does Bizcommunity Company Directory Scraper do?

Bizcommunity Company Directory Scraper collects public company listings from Bizcommunity directory pages such as South Africa Marketing & Media. It turns server-rendered directory rows into structured records that can be exported as JSON, CSV, Excel, or sent into your Apify integrations.

Who is it for?

• 🧲 B2B sales teams building African company prospect lists.
• 📣 Agencies researching marketing, media, retail, technology, and service suppliers.
• 🧑‍💼 Recruiters mapping employers and press offices in South Africa and nearby markets.
• 📊 Market researchers tracking company presence across Bizcommunity categories.
• 🧰 Data teams that need repeatable directory extraction instead of manual copy-paste.

Why use this scraper?

Manual directory collection is slow and error-prone. This actor fetches the public HTML, extracts consistent fields, and preserves the source URL for auditability. It can also visit company profile pages to find website links and visible contact hints when Bizcommunity exposes them in the HTML.

What data can you extract?

Field	Description
companyName	Company or press office name
profileUrl	Bizcommunity company/profile URL
websiteUrl	External website when visible
contactUrl	Bizcommunity contact page URL when present
description	Directory snippet or profile meta description
logoUrl	Logo image URL
companyId	Bizcommunity company ID when available
countryId	Country/location ID parsed from the directory URL
industryId	Industry/category ID parsed from the directory URL
listingTitle	Directory page title
profileType	press_office or company when detectable
email	Email detected in visible profile text, if any
phone	Phone detected in visible profile text, if any
socialLinks	Visible social profile links
sourceUrl	Directory page used for extraction
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp for the run

How much does it cost to scrape Bizcommunity company listings?

The actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay a $0.005 run-start event plus a formula-derived per-result event for each saved company listing. Current BRONZE per-result pricing is $0.000097447 per company (about $0.097 per 1,000 companies), with standard Apify tier discounts for higher plans. The default prefilled run is intentionally small so your first test stays inexpensive.

How to use it

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Paste one or more Bizcommunity directory URLs, or keep the default South Africa Marketing & Media page.
3. Set Max companies to the number of rows you want.
4. Keep Fetch profile details enabled if you want external website links.
5. Start the run.
6. Download results from the Dataset tab.

Input options

Directory page URLs

Use URLs like:

https://www.bizcommunity.com/Companies/196/11.html

You can add multiple directory URLs to combine categories in one dataset.

Country ID fallback

If you leave URLs empty, the actor builds a URL using countryId and industryId. South Africa is commonly 196 on Bizcommunity.

Industry ID fallback

The default industry is 11, used by Bizcommunity for Marketing & Media in the researched URL.

Max companies

Caps the number of saved records. Use a small number for tests and increase it for production runs.

Fetch profile details

When enabled, the actor requests each company profile page to extract external website links, social links, and contact hints. Disable it if you only need fast directory-level output.

Output example

{
  "companyName": "Ignite Talent Lab",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/PressOffice/IgniteTalentLab",
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.ignitetalentlab.co.za/",
  "contactUrl": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/PressOffice/Contact.aspx?cid=724716",
  "description": "Ignite Talent Lab is a boutique sports marketing agency based in Cape Town, South Africa...",
  "logoUrl": "https://biz-file.com/b/2508/2451835.png?1",
  "companyId": "724716",
  "countryId": "196",
  "industryId": "11",
  "profileType": "press_office",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Companies/196/11.html",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-19T08:00:00.000Z"
}

Tips for better results

• ✅ Use official Bizcommunity directory URLs instead of search-result pages.
• ✅ Keep the first run small to confirm the category is right.
• ✅ Enable profile details when website URLs matter.
• ✅ Disable profile details for high-speed directory-only exports.
• ✅ Keep sourceUrl in your exports so every row is traceable.

Integrations

Use Apify integrations to send Bizcommunity company data to:

• Google Sheets for sales prospect review.
• Airtable for lead scoring.
• Zapier or Make for CRM workflows.
• Webhooks for enrichment pipelines.
• Data warehouses through the Apify API.

API usage

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/bizcommunity-company-directory-scraper').call({
  startUrls: ['https://www.bizcommunity.com/Companies/196/11.html'],
  maxResults: 20,
  includeProfileDetails: true
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
import os

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('automation-lab/bizcommunity-company-directory-scraper').call(run_input={
    'startUrls': ['https://www.bizcommunity.com/Companies/196/11.html'],
    'maxResults': 20,
    'includeProfileDetails': True,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

cURL

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~bizcommunity-company-directory-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"startUrls":["https://www.bizcommunity.com/Companies/196/11.html"],"maxResults":20,"includeProfileDetails":true}'

MCP usage

Connect this actor to Apify MCP with a tool-scoped URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/bizcommunity-company-directory-scraper

Claude Code CLI setup:

$claude mcp add apify-bizcommunity "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/bizcommunity-company-directory-scraper"

Claude Desktop JSON config example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-bizcommunity": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/bizcommunity-company-directory-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts using MCP:

• “Use the Apify Bizcommunity tool to run the scraper for the South Africa Marketing & Media directory and summarize the top agencies.”
• “Use MCP to extract 50 Bizcommunity company listings and identify which rows include website URLs.”
• “Run the Bizcommunity actor through Apify MCP and create a CSV-ready lead list from this directory URL.”

Data quality notes

Bizcommunity pages vary by company type. Some rows have rich press-office profiles and external websites. Others only expose a basic company profile and directory snippet. Email and phone fields are populated only when those values are visible in public server-rendered HTML.

Legality

This actor collects publicly available directory information. You should review Bizcommunity’s terms, respect applicable laws, and use the data responsibly. Do not scrape private, logged-in, or personal data that you are not allowed to process.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Bizcommunity?

The actor is designed for public directory pages. You are responsible for ensuring your use case, storage, and outreach comply with applicable laws and site terms.

Why are email or phone fields empty?

Many Bizcommunity profiles do not expose direct emails or phone numbers in the public HTML. The actor still returns profile and contact-page URLs so you can review the source.

Why did I get fewer rows than expected?

The selected directory page may contain fewer unique listings than your maxResults, or duplicate profile links may have been removed.

How can I scrape another category?

Open the category on Bizcommunity, copy the /Companies/{countryId}/{industryId}.html URL, and paste it into Directory page URLs.

Related scrapers

Try other automation-lab actors for broader lead generation:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab/google-maps-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/yellow-pages-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/company-website-scraper

Changelog

0.1

Initial version with HTTP directory extraction, optional profile enrichment, structured dataset schema, and Bizcommunity-specific input fields.

Limitations

• The actor does not log in.
• It does not solve CAPTCHAs.
• It does not infer hidden contact data.
• It currently follows the directory pages you provide and does not crawl every Bizcommunity category automatically.

Support

If a directory URL stops working, open an issue with the input URL, run ID, and expected category. Include whether profile enrichment was enabled.

Responsible use

Keep run sizes reasonable, cache your own exports when possible, and only contact companies in ways that comply with relevant marketing and privacy rules.

Example categories to try

• Marketing & Media in South Africa: https://www.bizcommunity.com/Companies/196/11.html
• Any other Bizcommunity company category with the same /Companies/{countryId}/{industryId}.html pattern.

Export formats

Apify datasets can be exported as JSON, JSONL, CSV, XML, RSS, HTML table, or Excel. CSV is usually best for CRM upload; JSON is best for enrichment pipelines.

Field mapping ideas

• companyName → Account name
• websiteUrl → Website
• profileUrl → Source profile
• description → Notes
• companyId → External ID
• sourceUrl → Lead source

Performance

The scraper uses lightweight HTTP requests and Cheerio parsing, so it does not need a browser. Profile enrichment adds one request per company.

Privacy

The actor saves only data found in public pages. Review exported data before using it in outreach workflows.