Wikipedia Pageviews & Article Data

Wikipedia pageviews API returns article traffic series, top articles, or current article summaries from Wikimedia public endpoints. Wikipedia traffic scraper output includes source URLs, retrieval status, and summary metadata when requested.

What it does

Use pageviews for traffic over a date range, top for ranked pages, or summary for article descriptions. Series rows include request counts, not unique people. Summary text is current at retrieval time even when traffic dates are historical.

Input example

{
  "mode": "pageviews",
  "projects": [
    "en.wikipedia.org"
  ],
  "articles": [
    "Albert_Einstein"
  ],
  "startDate": "2025-09-01",
  "endDate": "2025-09-03",
  "maxItems": 1
}

The example uses fields defined in the actor input schema. Other filters can be set in the Apify input form.

Output fields

Examples below come from sample_output.json; long strings and arrays are shown as excerpts. Modes and error rows can have different fields.

Field	Type in sample	Example value
mode	string	"pageviews"
project	string	"en.wikipedia.org"
article	string	"Albert_Einstein"
title	string	"Albert Einstein"
article_url	string	"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein"
status	string	"ok"
errors	array	[]
fetched_at	string	"2026-10-05T12:46:18.504153+00:00"
start_date	string	"2025-09-01"
end_date	string	"2025-09-03"
access	string	"all-access"
agent	string	"user"
granularity	string	"daily"
pageviews	array	[{"date": "2025-09-01", "views": 12007}, {"date": "2025-09-02", "views": 12422}, {…
total_views	number	36343
average_views	number	12114.333333333334
peak_date	string	"2025-09-02"
peak_views	number	12422
periods	number	3
source_url	string	"https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-article/en.wikipedia.org/…
summary	string	"Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist best known for developing…
description	string	"German-born theoretical physicist (1879–1955)"
page_id	number	736
wikidata_id	string	"Q937"
summary_type	string	"standard"
thumbnail_url	string	"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Albert_Einstein_Head_cle…
revision	string	"1376862306"
last_modified	string	"2026-09-26T17:36:25Z"
attribution	string	"Wikipedia contributors; see article_url for page history and licensing."
summary_source_url	string	"https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/summary/Albert_Einstein"

| date | string | "2025-09-01" | | rank | number | 3 | | views | number | 339418 |

Output example

A trimmed record copied from sample_output.json:

{
  "mode": "pageviews",
  "project": "en.wikipedia.org",
  "article": "Albert_Einstein",
  "title": "Albert Einstein",
  "article_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein",
  "status": "ok",
  "start_date": "2025-09-01",
  "end_date": "2025-09-03",
  "pageviews": [
    {
      "date": "2025-09-01",
      "views": 12007
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-09-02",
      "views": 12422
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-09-03",
      "views": 11914
    }
  ],
  "total_views": 36343,
  "average_views": 12114.333333333334,
  "peak_date": "2025-09-02",
  "peak_views": 12422,
  "periods": 3,
  "source_url": "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-article/en.wikipedia.org/all-access/user/Albert_Einstein/daily/2025090100/2025090300",
  "summary": "Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum theory. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from special relativity, has been called \"the world's most famous equation\". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for \"his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect\".",
  "last_modified": "2026-09-26T17:36:25Z",
  "fetched_at": "2026-10-05T12:46:18.504153+00:00",
  "errors": []
}

FAQ

What date and row limits apply? Traffic starts at 2015-07-01 and ends no later than yesterday UTC. A requested range can span at most 366 days. maxItems caps dataset rows, including errors.

Do I need an API key, proxy, or login? No source API key or login is required. Requests use direct HTTP. Supply a valid contact when you want it included in the descriptive User-Agent.

What is the pricing model? The proposed row event costs $0.00025 per usable traffic, top, or summary row. Failed rows are not charged. The owner must configure this event in Apify before publication.

How are rate limits handled? Transient network, HTTP 429, and server errors get at most three attempts. The client honors Retry-After up to 60 seconds.

How fresh are pageviews and summaries? Wikimedia traffic may arrive after a requested date, and a missing period is not filled with zero. Summaries reflect the current article revision; compare last_modified with fetched_at.

Use with AI agents / MCP

After this actor is available to your account, configure it as an actor tool in the Apify MCP server, or start a run through the Apify API with the same input JSON. Give the agent the actor identifier and access through your Apify credentials. Read the completed run’s default dataset through the returned run or dataset reference, check error fields before using records, and keep source URLs with quoted data. Limit the input to the task the agent is answering.

Source and reuse notes

Top-mode special-page filtering uses title heuristics and keeps original ranks. Redirects and language editions have separate traffic. Keep article_url for attribution and check the source page and image licensing before reuse. See Wikimedia pageview reference and User-Agent policy.