Das Oerdliche Scraper

Das Örtliche Scraper

A Actor that scrapes business listings from Das Örtliche (www.dasoertliche.de), Germany's nationwide telephone directory. It visits each business detail page to extract structured contact data including address, phone, fax, email, website, and category.

💡 Features

• Targeted Search: Specify the service or business type (search_what) and the geographic area (search_where). Use "bundesweit" for nationwide searches.
• Structured Address Data: Address is returned as a structured object with separate fields for street, house number, postal code, and city — ready for downstream processing without manual parsing.
• Unlimited Mode: Set max_businesses to 0 to scrape all available results. The website returns up to 10,000 listings per search.
• Run Resume: State is saved periodically so that interrupted runs can be automatically resumed from where they left off, without losing already-collected data.
• Rate Limiting: Requests are throttled to avoid overloading the server and reduce the risk of blocking.
• Proxy Support: Leverages Apify's built-in proxy integration (proxyConfiguration) for reliable IP rotation during scraping.
• Structured Output: Data is saved to the Apify dataset. Each record includes a scraped_at UTC timestamp.

📥 Input Parameters

Field	Type	Description	Default	Required
search_what	String	The business type, profession, or service to search for (e.g., "Arzt", "Heizung", "Restaurant").	"posterdruck"	Yes
search_where	String	The geographic location (e.g., a city name like "Berlin") or "bundesweit" for a nationwide search.	"bundesweit"	No
max_businesses	Integer	Maximum number of listings to save. Set 0 for unlimited (scrapes all available results, up to the website's limit of 10,000).	0	No
proxyConfiguration	Object	Apify proxy settings or custom proxy configuration.	{ "useApifyProxy": false }	No

🔹 Example Input

{
  "search_what": "Steuerberater",
  "search_where": "München",
  "max_businesses": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

📤 Output Data Structure

Each record in the dataset is a JSON object with the following fields.

🔹 Example Output

{
  "name": "Kanzlei Muster GmbH",
  "address": {
    "street": "Musterstraße",
    "house_number": "12",
    "postal_code": "80331",
    "city": "München"
  },
  "phone": "089 1234567",
  "fax": "089 1234568",
  "email": "info@kanzlei-muster.de",
  "website": "https://www.kanzlei-muster.de",
  "category": "Steuerberater in München",
  "scraped_at": "2025-04-30T09:30:00.123Z"
}

Note: Any field may be null if not present on the listing page.

🔹 Output Field Reference

Key	Description
name	Business name.
address	Structured address object (see below).
phone	Phone number.
fax	Fax number.
email	Email address.
website	Website URL (scheme normalized to https:// if missing).
category	Business category or branch (e.g., "Heizungs- und Lüftungsbau in Ingolstadt").
scraped_at	UTC timestamp of when the record was scraped.

The address field is a nested object:

Key	Description
street	Street name.
house_number	House number.
postal_code	5-digit German postal code.
city	City name, optionally including district (e.g., "Berlin, Gesundbrunnen").

⚙️ Usage

1. Configure inputs in the Input tab (set search_what, search_where, etc.).
2. Choose a proxy mode if needed. For large runs, Automatic Apify Proxy with RESIDENTIAL group is recommended.
3. Click Start.
4. Access results under Storage → Dataset.

To improve your results, test your search terms on Das Örtliche first to find the best keywords for the search_what field.

🎯 Use Cases

• Lead generation and contact harvesting.
• Market research and competitor analysis.
• Local SEO and business directory creation.
• Data enrichment pipelines on Apify.
• Building German business contact databases by region or industry.

🤝 Other Actors

You can enhance your data processing pipelines by combining this actor with other Apify actors:

• German Yellow Pages Scraper — Scrape business listings from Gelbe Seiten, including ratings, opening hours, services, and more.
• German Imprint Scraper — Automatically find and extract contact information from German imprint pages ("Impressum").

🔗 Integrations

• Scheduler: automate daily/weekly runs.
• Webhooks: trigger downstream workflows on completion.
• API: programmatic control via Apify API.
• Composer: chain with other Actors (e.g., cleaning, enrichment).

🛠️ Maintainer

• Author: Dominic M. Quaiser
• Contact: mail@dominic-quaiser.io
• Website: dominic-quaiser.io