Startpage News Scraper

Startpage News Scraper

Scrape news search results from Startpage, the leading Google News alternative that returns tracking-free news coverage without ads or search history logging. The Startpage News Scraper is a Google News alternative API for developers — enter one or more queries and get back structured headlines, article URLs, publishers, publish dates, and preview images, ready for media monitoring, brand tracking, or AI agent workflows.

Run unlimited queries with pagination, filter by 63 regions, 82 languages, safe search level, and time period — get clean news results without ads or personalization noise.

Copy to your AI assistant

Copy this block into ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or any LLM to start using this actor.

Startpage News Scraper (parsebird/startpage-news-scraper) — Scrapes news search results from Startpage, a Google News alternative with no tracking. Input: {"queries": ["artificial intelligence regulation"], "maxItems": 10, "region": "all", "language": "english", "safeSearch": "moderate", "timePeriod": "any"}. Fields: queries (string array, required — each query is fully paginated before the next starts), maxItems (integer, required — max news results across all queries combined, 0 = unlimited), region (63 supported locales, e.g. en_US, fr_FR, de_DE; default all), language (82 supported languages; default english), safeSearch (strict/moderate/off; default moderate), timePeriod (any/day/week/month/year; default any). Outputs per result: query, position, page, pagePosition, title, url, displayUrl, description, publisher, published, thumbnailUrl (conditional), imageWidth (conditional), imageHeight (conditional), anonymousViewUrl (conditional). API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parsebird~startpage-news-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN. Get token: https://console.apify.com/account#/integrations

What does Startpage News Scraper do?

Startpage News Scraper turns any Startpage news query into structured JSON, CSV, or Excel data — the same news results you see at startpage.com, but machine-readable. Startpage is a Google News alternative that surfaces Bing News coverage through a tracking-free proxy, making it a practical source for privacy-conscious media monitoring. Enter your queries, set your filters, and the scraper:

• 🔍 Runs one or more news search queries, each fully paginated before the next starts
• 📰 Extracts headlines, article URLs, display URLs, descriptions, and publishers
• 🖼️ Captures preview images with width and height, and Anonymous View proxy links when Startpage includes them
• 🌍 Filters by region (63 Startpage-supported locales) and language (82 supported languages)
• 🛡️ Controls explicit-content filtering with strict, moderate, or off safe search
• ⏱️ Restricts results to a recent time window — past day, week, month, or year
• ♾️ Paginates automatically up to your maxItems limit, or scrape as many pages as Startpage returns
• ⚡ Runs on lightweight infrastructure (128–512 MB) — fast and cost-efficient

Because Startpage is a Google News alternative, this scraper is a practical way to pull tracking-free news coverage for brand monitoring and media research without dealing with Google's own bot defenses directly.

What data can you extract from Startpage news results?

Field	Description
query	The original search query that produced this result
position	Overall rank across all pages saved for this query
page	Startpage result page number
pagePosition	Rank within that specific page
title	Article headline as displayed on Startpage
url	Destination article URL
displayUrl	URL displayed in the result
description	Article summary returned by Startpage
publisher	News source name
published	Publication date
thumbnailUrl	Preview image URL, when present
imageWidth / imageHeight	Preview image dimensions in pixels, when present
anonymousViewUrl	Startpage's Anonymous View proxy link, when present

How to scrape Startpage news results

1. Open the Startpage News Scraper on Apify
2. Enter one or more News Queries — keywords like artificial intelligence regulation
3. Set Max Results to control how many news results to collect across all queries (default: 10)
4. Optionally choose a Region and Language to localize coverage
5. Set Safe Search and Time Period if you need filtered or recent-only articles
6. Click Start and wait for results
7. Export your data as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the dataset tab

Quick start input:

{
    "queries": ["artificial intelligence regulation", "AI safety policy"],
    "maxItems": 100,
    "region": "en_US",
    "language": "english",
    "safeSearch": "moderate",
    "timePeriod": "day"
}

European brand coverage:

{
    "queries": ["electric vehicle battery investment"],
    "maxItems": 250,
    "region": "de_DE",
    "language": "deutsch",
    "safeSearch": "strict",
    "timePeriod": "month"
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
queries	string array	Yes	—	News search keywords. Each query is fully paginated before the next starts
maxItems	integer	Yes	10	Maximum news results to save across all queries combined. Set 0 for unlimited
region	string	No	all	Preferred result region — choose all or a supported locale such as en_US, fr_FR, de_DE
language	string	No	english	Preferred result language, selected from Startpage's 82 supported languages
safeSearch	string	No	moderate	Explicit-content filtering: strict, moderate, or off
timePeriod	string	No	any	Recency filter: any, day, week, month, or year

Output example

{
    "query": "artificial intelligence regulation",
    "position": 1,
    "page": 1,
    "pagePosition": 1,
    "title": "New artificial intelligence rules enter final review",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/technology/ai-rules-final-review",
    "displayUrl": "https://www.example.com/technology/ai-rules-final-review",
    "description": "Regulators published updated guidance for companies developing and deploying AI systems.",
    "publisher": "Example News",
    "published": "2026-07-15",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://www.startpage.com/av/proxy-image?piurl=...",
    "imageWidth": 1024,
    "imageHeight": 576,
    "anonymousViewUrl": "https://us3-browse.startpage.com/av/proxy?ep=..."
}

Use cases

• Media monitoring — Track how a brand, product, or executive is covered across news outlets
• Industry monitoring — Watch a topic like AI regulation or EV investment for daily developments
• Competitor tracking — See which publishers cover a competitor and how often
• PR measurement — Quantify press coverage volume and sentiment sources over time
• Content research — Source recent articles on a topic for newsletters or briefings
• AI agent grounding — Feed structured Google News alternative results into LLM pipelines and RAG systems
• Privacy-conscious research — Collect news data without triggering Google's own tracking or personalization
• Trend monitoring — Schedule recurring runs to track how coverage shifts day to day

How much does it cost to scrape Startpage News?

The Startpage News Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing. You are charged per news result scraped — no separate compute fees on top.

Event	Price per event	Price per 1,000
result-scraped (Free)	$0.0015	$1.50
result-scraped (Bronze)	$0.0014	$1.40
result-scraped (Silver)	$0.0012	$1.20
result-scraped (Gold)	$0.001	$1.00

Each result pushed to the dataset counts as one event. For example, scraping 1,000 results on the Free plan costs $1.50, and $1.00 on the Gold plan.

Apify's Free plan includes monthly platform credits, so you can try the Startpage News Scraper's free trial before committing to a paid plan.

Integrations and API access

Use the Startpage News Scraper programmatically via the Apify API, JavaScript client, or Python client.

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("parsebird/startpage-news-scraper").call(run_input={
    "queries": ["artificial intelligence regulation"],
    "maxItems": 50,
    "region": "en_US",
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["position"], item["publisher"], item["title"])

JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from "apify-client";

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: "YOUR_API_TOKEN" });

const run = await client.actor("parsebird/startpage-news-scraper").call({
    queries: ["artificial intelligence regulation"],
    maxItems: 50,
    region: "en_US",
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => console.log(item.position, item.publisher, item.title));

You can also connect the Startpage News Scraper to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, and other platforms via Apify integrations. Schedule runs daily, weekly, or at any interval for automated media monitoring, and export results as JSON, CSV, or Excel directly from the dataset tab.

Is it legal to scrape Startpage News?

Scraping publicly available search results is generally considered legal based on the 2022 US appeals court ruling in hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn. This actor only accesses publicly available news search results — it does not log in, bypass paywalls, or access private data.

Always review Startpage's Terms of Service and comply with applicable laws in your jurisdiction. For guidance, see Apify's guide to web scraping legality.

Related Actors

Looking for other search or media monitoring data sources on Apify?

• Startpage Search Scraper — Scrape Startpage organic web search results, a Google SERP alternative
• Startpage Images Scraper — Scrape Startpage image search results, a Google Images alternative
• Startpage Videos Scraper — Scrape Startpage video search results, a Google Videos alternative
• YouTube Search Scraper — Scrape YouTube search results for videos, channels, and playlists

FAQ

Is Startpage News really a Google News alternative? Yes. Startpage surfaces Bing News coverage through a tracking-free proxy with no ads, personalization, or search history logging — making it a practical Google News alternative for privacy-conscious media monitoring.

How many results can I scrape per run? Set maxItems to any number, or 0 to paginate until Startpage stops returning results. Results are shared across all queries in the queries list, and each query is fully paginated before the next one starts.

Why do my region or language filters not change every result? Startpage ranks articles by relevance first. A strongly English-dominant query can keep returning English-language coverage even with a different language filter applied. Region and language settings bias which locale of the index is queried, but don't force a specific language onto every result.

Why don't all results have a thumbnail or image dimensions? Not every news article Startpage indexes has a preview image. The thumbnailUrl, imageWidth, and imageHeight fields are only included when Startpage provides them for that result.

What is the anonymousViewUrl field? It's Startpage's built-in Anonymous View link — a proxy URL that lets you open an article without the destination site seeing your IP address or browser fingerprint. It's only included when Startpage provides one for a result.

Can I schedule recurring runs? Yes. Use Apify's scheduling feature to run the scraper daily, weekly, or at any custom interval — useful for ongoing media monitoring on this Google News alternative.

Can I use this with my AI assistant or MCP server? Yes. Copy the AI assistant block from the top of this page into ChatGPT, Claude, or Cursor. You can also use the Apify MCP server to connect this actor to any AI agent framework.

Something isn't working. How do I get help? Open an issue in the Issues tab on the actor page. Include your input configuration and any error messages.