Patch Scraper

Scrape Patch.com — hyperlocal news, local events, and classifieds for thousands of US towns and cities. Search any keyword nationwide or within a specific town, browse the latest headlines for any town/city, browse by category (Politics & Government, Sports, Real Estate, Crime & Safety, and more), pull every article by a specific author, browse by editorial tag, browse the local events calendar, or browse classifieds/marketplace listings. Filter by publish-date range, event date range, or by distance from a location, and get the headline, summary, author, date, town, category, tags, and image for every record. No login, no cookies, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Seven modes: search, byTown, byCategory, byAuthor, byTag, events, classifieds
• Nationwide or scoped: search and browse across all of Patch, or narrow to one US state and/or one town/city
• 21 news categories: Politics & Government, Sports, Crime & Safety, Real Estate, Schools, Business, Arts & Entertainment, Obituaries, Pets, Weather, and more
• 11 classifieds categories: For Sale, Housing, Gigs & Services, Announcements, Lost & Found, and more
• Local events calendar: browse upcoming community events with venue address and event date, independent from news articles
• Date-range filtering: only return articles/events/classifieds published between two dates, plus a dedicated event-occurrence date range for mode=events
• Geo-radius filtering: only return news articles from towns within N miles of a latitude/longitude, and sort by distance (news modes only)
• Flexible sorting: relevance, newest first, oldest first, nearest first (news), or soonest-event-first (events)
• Empty fields are omitted — every field returned in a record has real, populated data

Output per record

Every record always includes recordType ("article" / "event" / "classified") and scrapedAt. Field availability depends on recordType:

News articles (recordType: "article")

• articleId — Patch's internal article ID
• headline — article title
• shortHeadline — shortened headline used on Patch's cards/feeds
• summary — one-line article summary/dek
• author — byline name
• authorId — Patch's internal author ID (useful to disambiguate two reporters who share a name)
• authorUrl — link to the author's Patch profile
• publishedDate — publish timestamp (ISO 8601, UTC)
• updatedDate — last-updated timestamp (only present when different from publishedDate)
• url — canonical article URL on patch.com
• town — the Patch community the article belongs to (e.g. Santa Monica)
• townUrl — link to that town's Patch homepage
• state — 2-letter US state/territory abbreviation (e.g. CA)
• regionUrl — link to that state's Patch statewide news hub
• category — news category/topic (e.g. Politics & Government)
• tags — editorial tags on the article (e.g. ["Back To School"]; only present when Patch tagged the article — most articles have none)
• imageUrl — article thumbnail image
• distanceMiles — distance from nearLat/nearLng, in miles (only present when a geo search is used)

Local events (recordType: "event", mode=events)

• eventId — Patch's internal event ID
• headline — event title
• shortHeadline, summary, author, authorId, authorUrl — same meaning as articles (the event's poster)
• eventDate — the event's own occurrence date/time (ISO 8601, UTC) — this is what you filter with eventDateAfter/eventDateBefore
• publishedDate / updatedDate — when the event listing itself was posted/edited on Patch (filter with publishedAfter/publishedBefore)
• url, town, townUrl, state, regionUrl, imageUrl — same meaning as articles
• eventAddress — venue city/state/postal code, comma-joined (only present when Patch has address data for the event; most recent events include this)
• eventLat / eventLng — venue coordinates (only present when Patch has geocoded the venue)
• isPromoted — true if the event listing is a paid/sponsored promotion

Classifieds (recordType: "classified", mode=classifieds)

• classifiedId — Patch's internal classified listing ID
• headline — listing title
• shortHeadline, summary, author, authorId, authorUrl — same meaning as articles (the poster)
• category — classifieds category (e.g. Housing, For Sale, Gigs & Services — see classifiedCategory input)
• publishedDate / updatedDate — when the listing was posted/edited
• expiresDate — when the listing expires from Patch's classifieds board
• url, town, townUrl, state, regionUrl, imageUrl — same meaning as articles
• isPromoted — true if the listing is a paid/sponsored promotion

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / byTown / byCategory / byAuthor / byTag / events / classifieds
searchQuery	string	–	Free-text keyword (mode=search; also works as an optional keyword filter on byTown/byCategory/byAuthor/byTag/events/classifieds)
authorName	string	–	Exact byline/reporter/poster name, e.g. Eric Heyl (required for mode=byAuthor; optional filter combinable with any other mode, including events/classifieds)
tagName	string	–	Exact editorial tag, e.g. Back To School (required for mode=byTag; optional filter on search/byTown/byCategory/byAuthor; not applicable to events/classifieds)
regionSlug	string	–	US state to scope to, e.g. california (required for mode=byTown; optional filter on every other mode)
townSlug	string	–	Town/city URL slug, e.g. santamonica (required for mode=byTown, needs regionSlug too; optional filter on every other mode)
category	string	–	News category (required for mode=byCategory; optional filter on search/byTown/byAuthor/byTag; not applicable to events/classifieds)
classifiedCategory	string	–	Classifieds category, e.g. housing (mode=classifieds only; a separate value set from category)
sortBy	string	relevance	relevance / newest / oldest / nearest (news modes only, requires nearLat/nearLng) / eventDate (mode=events only)
publishedAfter	string	–	Only records posted to Patch on/after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
publishedBefore	string	–	Only records posted to Patch on/before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
eventDateAfter	string	–	mode=events only. Only events occurring on/after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
eventDateBefore	string	–	mode=events only. Only events occurring on/before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
nearLat	number	–	Latitude to search near (news modes only; combine with nearLng, radiusMiles)
nearLng	number	–	Longitude to search near (news modes only; combine with nearLat, radiusMiles)
radiusMiles	int	25	Search radius in miles around nearLat/nearLng (news modes only, 1–500)
maxItems	int	25	Maximum records to return (1–250)

regionSlug and townSlug come straight from the Patch URL — for patch.com/california/santamonica, regionSlug is california and townSlug is santamonica. Every filter above — including authorName and tagName — can be combined with any mode: e.g. mode=search + searchQuery + authorName searches one reporter's own articles for a keyword, or mode=byCategory + category + tagName narrows a category browse down to one editorial tag. mode=events and mode=classifieds browse Patch's local events calendar and classifieds board — separate content types from news articles, sharing the same town/state scope, searchQuery, and authorName filters, but with their own category axis (classifiedCategory) and date axis (eventDateAfter/eventDateBefore for events).

Example: nationwide keyword search

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "school board",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: latest news for a specific town

{
  "mode": "byTown",
  "regionSlug": "california",
  "townSlug": "santamonica",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: browse a category nationwide

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "real-estate",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: category browse scoped to one state

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "sports",
  "regionSlug": "texas",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 40
}

Example: everything by one author

{
  "mode": "byAuthor",
  "authorName": "Eric Heyl",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: everything tagged with an editorial tag

{
  "mode": "byTag",
  "tagName": "Back To School",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: real-estate news published in a date range

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "real-estate",
  "publishedAfter": "2026-08-01",
  "publishedBefore": "2026-08-31",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: news within 25 miles of a location, nearest first

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "traffic",
  "nearLat": 40.4406,
  "nearLng": -79.9959,
  "radiusMiles": 25,
  "sortBy": "nearest",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: one category narrowed to one reporter

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "sports",
  "authorName": "Eric Heyl",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: local events happening this weekend in one town

{
  "mode": "events",
  "regionSlug": "california",
  "townSlug": "santamonica",
  "eventDateAfter": "2026-08-21",
  "eventDateBefore": "2026-08-23",
  "sortBy": "eventDate",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: classifieds nationwide, one category

{
  "mode": "classifieds",
  "classifiedCategory": "housing",
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Use cases

• Local news monitoring — track breaking news for a specific town or neighborhood
• Real estate & business intelligence — pull local real-estate and business coverage across a state or nationwide
• Media monitoring — search for a brand, person, or topic mentioned across thousands of local outlets
• Content aggregation — build a local-news feed or newsletter for a specific community
• Academic & civic research — analyze hyperlocal coverage of politics, schools, and community issues
• Reporter/byline tracking — follow every article published by a specific journalist
• Location-based monitoring — find recent local coverage within a radius of a specific address or landmark
• Community calendar aggregation — pull upcoming local events for a town/state into your own calendar or newsletter
• Local marketplace monitoring — track new housing, for-sale, or gigs/services classifieds in a specific area

FAQ

What is the data source? Patch.com's own public news search — the same search index the Patch.com website itself uses.

Is this affiliated with Patch.com? No, this is an independent, third-party actor that reads Patch.com's publicly accessible pages and search service. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Patch Media.

How do I find a town's regionSlug and townSlug? Visit patch.com, search for your town, and look at the URL: patch.com/{regionSlug}/{townSlug}. For example patch.com/new-york/manhattan -> regionSlug=new-york, townSlug=manhattan.

How do I find an author's exact authorName? Run any other mode first and copy the author field from a result — Patch matches bylines exactly (case-insensitive), so a guessed name may return 0 results if it doesn't match Patch's stored byline precisely.

How do I find an exact tagName, and why isn't it a dropdown like category? Run any other mode first and copy a value from a result's tags field. Unlike category (a fixed list of Patch topics), editorial tags are open-ended and Patch editors coin new ones continuously, so there's no finite list to enumerate — only a minority of articles carry tags at all, so try a different query or mode until a tags field shows up.

Why are some fields (like updatedDate, distanceMiles, eventAddress) sometimes missing? They're only included when the underlying data actually applies to that record — e.g. updatedDate only appears if the article was edited after publishing, and distanceMiles only appears when you set both nearLat and nearLng on a news mode. See the field descriptions under Output above for exactly when each optional field appears.

Does this include the full article/event/classified body text? No — only the headline, summary, and structured metadata (author, dates, town, category, tags, image) are returned. Full body text isn't currently supported.

What's the difference between publishedAfter/publishedBefore and eventDateAfter/eventDateBefore? publishedAfter/publishedBefore filter by when a record (article, event listing, or classified) was posted to Patch — available on every mode. eventDateAfter/eventDateBefore (mode=events only) filter by the event's own occurrence date instead — e.g. use them to find "events happening this weekend" regardless of when the listing was posted.

Why does maxItems cap out at 250? Patch's public search only exposes the first 250 matching results per query. To page further back, run the actor again with publishedBefore (or eventDateBefore for events) set to the oldest date returned by the previous run.

How fresh is the data? Results reflect Patch's live search index at the time the actor runs — typically minutes behind newly published articles/events/classifieds.