Google News Scraper - Real-time News Data Extraction

Extract news articles from Google News RSS feeds with multi-language support, date filtering, and browser enrichment for actual article URLs and content.

What This Actor Does

Google News Scraper searches Google News RSS feeds by keyword, extracts article metadata, then uses a browser to follow Google News redirect links to resolve actual article URLs and extract content from the source websites.

Key Features

• Keyword Search - Search for any topic across Google News
• 40+ Languages - Support for English, Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and more
• 60+ Regions - Target news from specific countries
• Date Filtering - Filter by past hour, 24 hours, week, or month
• Browser Enrichment - Resolves actual article URLs, extracts images and article text
• Resume on Migration - Saves progress and resumes if the Actor is migrated

Use Cases

• Market Intelligence - Track industry trends and competitor news
• Brand Monitoring - Monitor brand mentions across news sources worldwide
• Content Aggregation - Build news dashboards and content platforms
• Research - Collect news data for sentiment analysis and academic research
• Media Monitoring - Track coverage of specific topics or events

Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries (required)	array	-	Keywords to search for (1-50 queries, max 200 chars each)
region	string	"us"	Country code for news results (e.g., "us", "uk", "tw", "jp", "de")
language	string	"en"	Language code (e.g., "en", "zh-TW", "zh-CN", "ja", "ko", "es")
dateFilter	string	"1d"	Time period: "1h" (past hour), "1d" (24 hours), "1w" (week), "1m" (month), "" (all time)
maxResults	integer	20	Maximum articles per query (10-200)

Output Data

Each article in the dataset contains:

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Article headline
googleNewsUrl	string	Original Google News URL
articleUrl	string or null	Actual article URL (resolved via browser enrichment)
source	string	Publisher name (e.g., "TechCrunch")
websiteName	string or null	Website name from meta tags
websiteUrl	string or null	Publisher's homepage URL
imageUrl	string or null	Article image URL
pubDate	string	Publication date from RSS feed
timestamp	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
description	string	Article summary from RSS
excerpt	string	Extended description (from enrichment or RSS)
articleContent	object or null	Extracted article text with character and token counts
enrichmentTime	number or null	Time taken for browser enrichment in milliseconds
guid	string	Unique article identifier
searchQuery	string	The keyword that found this article
region	string	Region used for this search
language	string	Language used for this search
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp when the article was scraped

Note: Fields marked "or null" may be null when browser enrichment cannot access the target website (e.g., paywalled sites, geographic restrictions, or sites that block automated access).

When available, articleContent contains:

• content — Article text (max 2,000 characters)
• characterCount — Total character count of the content
• tokenCount — Token count: each CJK character counts as 1 token, non-CJK text is split by spaces

Example Output

{
    "title": "Major AI Breakthrough Announced by Research Team",
    "googleNewsUrl": "https://news.google.com/rss/articles/...",
    "articleUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/ai-breakthrough",
    "source": "TechCrunch",
    "websiteName": "TechCrunch",
    "websiteUrl": "https://techcrunch.com",
    "imageUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/...",
    "pubDate": "Thu, 27 Feb 2026 10:30:00 GMT",
    "timestamp": "2026-02-27T10:30:00.000Z",
    "description": "Researchers announce breakthrough in artificial intelligence...",
    "excerpt": "A team of researchers has announced a significant breakthrough...",
    "articleContent": {
        "content": "Full article text extracted from the website...",
        "characterCount": 1850,
        "tokenCount": 312
    },
    "enrichmentTime": 4520,
    "guid": "CBMi...",
    "searchQuery": "artificial intelligence",
    "region": "us",
    "language": "en",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-02-27T10:35:00.000Z"
}

Quick Start Examples

Monitor Technology News

{
    "searchQueries": ["artificial intelligence", "ChatGPT", "technology"],
    "language": "en",
    "region": "us",
    "dateFilter": "1d",
    "maxResults": 50
}

Track Business News in Taiwan

{
    "searchQueries": ["台積電", "科技業", "股市"],
    "language": "zh-TW",
    "region": "tw",
    "dateFilter": "1w",
    "maxResults": 100
}

Real-time Breaking News

{
    "searchQueries": ["breaking news"],
    "language": "en",
    "region": "us",
    "dateFilter": "1h",
    "maxResults": 20
}

Japanese Tech News

{
    "searchQueries": ["AI", "テクノロジー"],
    "language": "ja",
    "region": "jp",
    "dateFilter": "1d",
    "maxResults": 30
}

How to Use

On Apify Platform

1. Click Start on this Actor's page
2. Enter your search keywords in the input form
3. Select language, region, and time filter
4. Click Run to start scraping
5. View and export results in JSON, CSV, or Excel

Via API

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_ACTOR_ID').call({
    searchQueries: ["your keywords"],
    language: "en",
    region: "us",
    dateFilter: "1d",
    maxResults: 20
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Cost and Performance

• Pricing: Pay-per-event — you are charged per Actor run and per result
• Speed: RSS extraction is fast; browser enrichment adds ~5-10 seconds per article
• Memory: Optimized for low memory usage with periodic browser restarts
• Rate Limiting: Built-in rate limiting with exponential backoff to prevent blocking

Tips to Control Costs

• Start with fewer maxResults (10-20) to test your keywords
• Use specific keywords for more relevant results
• Use dateFilter: "1d" to limit to recent articles
• Fewer search queries per run = lower cost

FAQ

Why are some article URLs null? Some news websites block automated access, use paywalls, or have geographic restrictions. When the browser cannot follow the Google News redirect, the article URL and enriched content will be null. The basic article data (title, source, description) from the RSS feed is always available.

How do I choose the right language and region? Match the language to your target audience's reading language, and the region to the country whose news you want. For example, use language: "zh-TW" and region: "tw" for Traditional Chinese news from Taiwan.

Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically? Yes. On the Apify platform, you can set up schedules to run this Actor at regular intervals (e.g., every hour for breaking news monitoring).

What is the maximum number of articles I can get? Up to 200 articles per query, with up to 50 queries per run. Google News RSS feeds typically return 20-100 articles depending on the topic and time filter.

Does this Actor use proxies? No. This Actor accesses Google News RSS feeds directly, which are publicly available. No proxy or residential IP is needed.