moveBuddha Moving Company Directory Scraper

Scrape moveBuddha.com's ranked moving-company directory — by city, by state, or by interstate route. Get company name, address, phone, star rating, review count, DOT/state license numbers, and (for interstate routes) price ranges. No login, no API key.

What this actor does

• Three search modes: byCity (local movers ranked for one city), byState (top movers state-wide), byRoute (interstate movers for an origin → destination pair, with route pricing)
• Long-distance variant: longDistanceOnly switches byCity/byState to moveBuddha's separate, distinctly-curated long-distance/interstate movers listing for that city or state (a different set of companies than the local listing)
• Rich structured data: reads the same MovingCompany JSON-LD (schema.org) that powers Google's rich results, plus a DOM pass for DOT number / state license / rank
• Filter: minimum star rating
• Empty fields are omitted — fields only exist on records where moveBuddha actually publishes that data (e.g. DOT number is a local/state-mode-only field; price range is a route-mode-only field)

Output per moving company

• rank — position in moveBuddha's ranked list for the searched area. Omitted (not fabricated) for a handful of national-brand entries (e.g. PODS, U-Haul, Penske) that byCity/byState pages include as blog-review-style listings outside the numbered ranking; always present on byRoute results, which are numbered by document order since route pages have no separate ranked list
• companyName, logoUrl
• streetAddress, city, state, postalCode, country, fullAddress
• phone — formatted +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx
• rating (0–5), reviewCount
• dotNumber — USDOT number (local/state modes, when shown)
• stateLicense — state moving license number (local/state modes, when shown)
• priceRange — estimated cost range for the route (route mode only)
• areaServed[] — cities served (route mode only)
• reviewSummary — moveBuddha's data-driven review summary
• positiveHighlights[], negativeHighlights[] — top themes from customer reviews
• detailUrl — the mover's own moveBuddha profile/review page
• serviceArea — the city/state/route searched
• sourceUrl — the directory page scraped
• recordType: "movingCompany", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	byCity	byCity / byState / byRoute
state	string	tx	US state (mode=byCity/byState) — 48 states supported
city	string	Austin	City name (mode=byCity), auto-slugified
originState	string	ca	Origin state (mode=byRoute)
originCity	string	Los Angeles	Origin city (mode=byRoute)
destinationState	string	ny	Destination state (mode=byRoute)
destinationCity	string	New York City	Destination city (mode=byRoute)
longDistanceOnly	bool	false	Scrape moveBuddha's separate long-distance/interstate movers listing instead of the local one (mode=byCity/byState)
minRating	int	–	Drop movers rated below this (0–5)
maxItems	int	30	Hard cap on emitted records (1–500)

Example: local movers in a city

{
  "mode": "byCity",
  "state": "tx",
  "city": "Austin",
  "minRating": 4,
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: top movers in a state

{
  "mode": "byState",
  "state": "ca",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: long-distance movers in a state

{
  "mode": "byState",
  "state": "tx",
  "longDistanceOnly": true
}

Example: interstate route

{
  "mode": "byRoute",
  "originState": "ca",
  "originCity": "Los Angeles",
  "destinationState": "ny",
  "destinationCity": "New York City"
}

Use cases

• Relocation planning — compare ranked, reviewed movers for a specific city or long-distance route
• Lead generation — build territory lists of moving companies with contact info and DOT numbers
• Competitive / market research — track rating, review volume, and pricing by market or route
• Compliance checks — cross-reference DOT/state license numbers against FMCSA records
• Content / comparison sites — enrich a moving-company database with moveBuddha's curated rankings and review summaries

FAQ

What is moveBuddha? An independent moving-industry review and comparison site that ranks local and long-distance movers using verified customer reviews, BBB ratings, and other signals.

Why do some fields only appear for certain modes? dotNumber/stateLicense come from the local/state-page profile panel, which route pages don't have (route pages instead show priceRange and areaServed for the specific corridor). This is real structural data, not a scraping gap.

Which states are supported? 48 US states with a dedicated moveBuddha directory page. Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington DC don't currently have published directory pages on moveBuddha and are not selectable.

What if a route isn't a "popular route" on moveBuddha? Only origin/destination pairs moveBuddha has published a route page for will return results (typically major-metro-to-major-metro pairs). Uncommon pairs return zero results with a status message rather than an error.

How is rank determined? It reflects moveBuddha's own ranking order for that city/state page (their proprietary blend of ratings, reviews, and BBB standing), not something the actor computes.

Are DOT numbers verified? They're published as-is from moveBuddha's listing; always cross-check against FMCSA SAFER before relying on them for compliance decisions.

How many companies come back per search? City and state pages both list moveBuddha's curated top ~16 movers for that area; route pages list a smaller set of interstate specialists (typically ~11). These are fixed-size curated lists on moveBuddha's own pages, not something the actor truncates — maxItems above the page's real count simply returns everything available.