# Article Extractor - Clean Text, Markdown & Metadata (`dariandanciu/article-extractor-markdown`) Actor

Turn any article URL into clean text and LLM-ready Markdown, with title, author, publish date, site, language, image and word count. No menus, ads or cookie banners. Bulk URLs; blocked and non-article pages are skipped and never charged.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/dariandanciu/article-extractor-markdown.md
- **Developed by:** [Darian Danciu](https://apify.com/dariandanciu) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, News, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 articles

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## Article Extractor - clean text, Markdown & metadata

Turn **any article URL into clean text and LLM-ready Markdown**, plus the **title, author,
publish date, site name, language, lead image, word count and reading time**. Menus, ads, cookie
banners, footers and "related stories" are removed. Paste hundreds of URLs at once.

### Why this one

- **Markdown that keeps structure.** Headings, lists, links and code blocks survive, which is exactly
  what RAG pipelines, summarizers and LLM prompts need.
- **Real metadata.** Author and dates come from the page's structured data (JSON-LD and meta tags)
  first, with Readability as a fallback, so you get `"Kif Leswing, Isabel O'Brien"` and
  `2026-10-24T11:00:01Z`, not an empty field.
- **No junk rows.** Bot-check pages ("Just a moment...", "Access denied"), section fronts and
  headline lists are detected and skipped instead of being returned as fake articles.
- **You never pay for skipped pages.** Blocked, missing, non-HTML and non-article URLs are listed in
  `RUN_SUMMARY` with the reason and cost nothing.
- **Fast and light.** Plain HTTP with the same engine as Firefox Reader View; no browser per page.
  Pages that block the first attempt get one retry through a residential proxy.

### Output

```json
{
    "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/24/nvidias-role-as-ai-financier-...html",
    "canonicalUrl": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/24/nvidias-role-as-ai-financier-...html",
    "title": "Nvidia's role as AI financier faces first big test as neoclouds take market hit",
    "author": "Kif Leswing, Isabel O'Brien",
    "publishedAt": "2026-10-24T11:00:01.000Z",
    "modifiedAt": null,
    "siteName": "CNBC",
    "language": "en",
    "description": "...",
    "imageUrl": "https://image.cnbcfm.com/...jpg",
    "section": "Technology",
    "keywords": ["Nvidia", "AI"],
    "wordCount": 1800,
    "readingTimeMinutes": 8,
    "text": "Nvidia has spent the past year...",
    "markdown": "Nvidia has spent the past year...\n\n## Key points\n\n- ...",
    "html": null
}
```

### Use cases

- **RAG and AI agents:** feed clean Markdown into embeddings, summaries or chat context.
- **Media monitoring:** pair it with a news feed to store full articles with author and date.
- **Research and archiving:** save readable copies of papers, posts and documentation.
- **Content analysis:** word counts, reading time and language across many sites.

Tip: pair it with **Google News Scraper** (real publisher URLs) for a news-to-text pipeline.

### Pricing

Pay per extracted article, one fixed price with platform usage included. See the Pricing tab. Skipped URLs
are free.

### Good to know

- Paywalled articles return only what the page shows without a subscription.
- A few sites block all automated access; those are skipped and reported, never charged.
- `minWords` (default 120) decides what counts as an article; lower it for short posts.

### Feedback

A page extracted badly? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the URL.

### Related Actors

More search, seo and content scrapers by the same developer, with the same pay-per-result pricing:

| Actor | What it gets |
|---|---|
| [Google Trends Scraper](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/google-trends-scraper) | Interest over time, by region, related queries and trending searches |
| [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/google-news-scraper) | Google News articles with the real publisher URL |
| [Keyword Suggestions](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/keyword-suggestions-scraper) | Autocomplete keyword ideas from Google, YouTube, Bing and Amazon |
| [Google Play Scraper](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/google-play-scraper-all-in-one) | Google Play reviews, app details, search and developers |
| [Website Screenshot](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/website-screenshot) | Bulk full-page, mobile and PDF screenshots |
| [Domain Lookup](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/domain-lookup-whois-dns-ssl) | WHOIS/RDAP, DNS, SSL expiry and email security for many domains |
| [Events Scraper](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/events-scraper-eventbrite-meetup-luma) | Events from Eventbrite, Meetup and Luma in one format |
| [Instagram Profile & Posts Scraper](https://apify.com/dariandanciu/instagram-scraper-no-login) | Public profiles, posts and engagement rate, no login |

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Articles, blog posts or documentation pages to extract. Paste a list, upload a file, or link a Google Sheet.

## `formats` (type: `array`):

Plain text, Markdown (headings, lists, code and links kept - ideal for LLMs), and/or cleaned HTML.

## `minWords` (type: `integer`):

Pages with fewer words are treated as not-an-article (index pages, error pages) and skipped for free.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many URLs to fetch at once.

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

Apify Proxy is recommended. Pages that block the first attempt get one retry through a residential proxy.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html"
    }
  ],
  "formats": [
    "text",
    "markdown"
  ],
  "minWords": 120,
  "maxConcurrency": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One row per extracted article with text, Markdown and metadata.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Articles extracted and URLs skipped with the reason (not charged).

# 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 = {
    "urls": [
        {
            "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("dariandanciu/article-extractor-markdown").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 = { "urls": [
        { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping" },
        { "url": "https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html" },
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("dariandanciu/article-extractor-markdown").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 '{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call dariandanciu/article-extractor-markdown --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,dariandanciu/article-extractor-markdown"
        }
    }
}
```

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/btM8uwWNJUSqZQ7SB/builds/VHbk9GfLHM8yP85dc/openapi.json