Caterpillar Equipment Catalog Scraper

Extract public Cat® equipment models, descriptions, specifications, equipment lists, images, and brochure links from Caterpillar product pages. The Actor is designed for equipment research, catalog monitoring, procurement analysis, and structured AI workflows.

This Actor covers the public new-equipment catalog on Cat.com. It does not scrape the authenticated Cat Parts Store, serial-number fitment diagrams, dealer-only data, used inventory, rental inventory, private pricing, or account data.

What it extracts

Field	Description
productId	Numeric Cat.com product identifier when present in the URL
model, title	Model name and full product-page title
category, subcategory	Equipment taxonomy parsed from the public URL
description	Public metadata or lead description
keySpecifications	Prominent specification name/value pairs
specificationGroups	Detailed specifications grouped by page section
standardEquipment, optionalEquipment	Public equipment lists, when shown
images	Public product image URLs
downloads	Public brochure and technical PDF links
sourceUrl, scrapedAt	Source provenance and collection time

When to use it

Use the Actor to build equipment comparison tables, monitor product-page changes, populate procurement research, find public technical documents, or give an AI agent structured model specifications. Supply one or more direct product URLs when you need deterministic records; category-page discovery is not enabled because Cat.com's regional catalog application did not expose stable product links during validation.

Do not use it for parts compatibility, PIN/serial-number diagrams, dealer quotes, checkout, logged-in data, or inventory. Those surfaces have different access and data contracts.

Input

Field	Default	Notes
startUrls	D7 product page in Console prefill	One or more Cat.com new-equipment product detail URLs
maxResults	20	1–500 delivered product records
includeSpecifications	true	Extract key and grouped specifications
includeEquipment	true	Extract standard and optional equipment
includeDownloads	true	Return document links without downloading files
useApifyProxy	true	Recommended residential route for Cat.com's Akamai protection
proxyCountry	US	Two-letter country code kept consistent for the browser session

Minimal deterministic input:

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/dozers/medium-dozers/102647.html" }
  ],
  "maxResults": 1
}

API example:

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_ACTOR_ID/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"startUrls":[{"url":"https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/excavators/large-excavators/127105.html"}],"maxResults":1}'

Keep API tokens in request headers or your secret manager in production; do not commit or log them.

Output example

{
  "productId": "102647",
  "model": "D7",
  "title": "D7 Medium Dozers",
  "category": "dozers",
  "subcategory": "medium dozers",
  "description": "The Cat D7 dozer delivers performance and technology.",
  "keySpecifications": [
    { "name": "Power - Net", "value": "265 hp | 197 kW" },
    { "name": "Operating Weight", "value": "65644 lb | 29776 kg" }
  ],
  "specificationGroups": [],
  "standardEquipment": ["Cat C9.3B diesel engine"],
  "optionalEquipment": ["Multi-shank ripper"],
  "images": ["https://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/Caterpillar/CM20200819-abc"],
  "downloads": [
    { "title": "D7 technical specifications", "url": "https://www.cat.com/content/dam/catDotCom/example.pdf" }
  ],
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/equipment/dozers/medium-dozers/102647.html",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-06T00:00:00.000Z"
}

The default dataset contains only product records. Run-level outcome, warnings, request counts, and block diagnostics are stored in the OUTPUT key-value record. This separates truthful failures from business data.

Pricing

The intended live model is pay per event:

Event	Price	Charged for
Actor start	$0.00005	One run start
Caterpillar product	$0.005	One schema-valid default-dataset record

A run delivering 20 products costs about $0.10005 in events. A blocked or empty run has no product events; only the start event applies. Apify may enforce your account's maximum-charge limit before maxResults is reached. Product records use Apify's synthetic dataset-item event, so the code does not manually double-charge them.

Reliability and limits

Cat.com uses Akamai and rejected measured bare HTTP and direct headless requests. The Actor therefore uses a coherent browser identity, sticky session cookies, bounded retries, low concurrency, and a US residential proxy by default. A challenged session is retired rather than mixed with a new fingerprint.

Cat.com category pages load model discovery through a regional application that did not reliably expose product links in validation, so this version deliberately accepts product detail URLs only. If access is denied, the Actor writes a blocked diagnostic to OUTPUT, returns no fabricated products, and charges no product events. Successfully extracted partial records are preserved if later pages fail.

The Actor accepts only public cat.com/.../products/new/equipment/.../<product-id>.html URLs. It caps products and browser requests at 500. Linked PDFs are not downloaded or parsed.

Legal and responsible use

Caterpillar and Cat are trademarks of Caterpillar Inc. This independent Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Caterpillar. Scrape only public data, respect website terms, robots guidance, applicable law, rate limits, and intellectual-property rights. Do not use the Actor to bypass authentication, CAPTCHAs, access controls, or geographic restrictions. Product specifications and availability can change; verify purchasing decisions with Caterpillar or an authorized dealer.

For support, include the Actor run ID, redacted input, expected outcome, and a short description of the problem. Never post tokens, proxy URLs, cookies, or account information.