# Contact Scout — website contact extractor (`popularly_ceremony/contact-scout`) Actor

Feed it business websites, get back emails, phone numbers and social profiles — one clean row per site.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/popularly\_ceremony/contact-scout.md
- **Developed by:** [Myat Thu](https://apify.com/popularly_ceremony) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Contact Scout

Feed it a list of business websites. Get back one clean row per site: email
addresses, phone numbers, and social profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram,
X/Twitter, YouTube).

Built for lead enrichment: you have a list of company domains (from a
directory, a CRM export, a conference list) and need the contact details that
are sitting on their public websites.

### What it does

For each website, Contact Scout:

1. Fetches the homepage.
2. Finds the most contact-likely internal pages (contact, about, team,
   support, impressum...) and scans up to `max_pages_per_site` of them.
3. Extracts:
   - **Emails** — from `mailto:` links and page text (asset filenames and
     tracker domains filtered out).
   - **Phone numbers** — `tel:` links are trusted verbatim; text matches are
     kept only when they look like written phone numbers, so dates, prices,
     and map coordinates stay out of your data.
   - **Social profiles** — first LinkedIn / Facebook / Instagram / X /
     YouTube profile link found (share buttons ignored).

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `start_urls` | array | — | One entry per website |
| `max_pages_per_site` | integer | 5 | 1–20; homepage counts |

### Output

One dataset row per site:

```json
{
  "website": "https://example.com",
  "domain": "example.com",
  "emails": ["hello@example.com"],
  "phones": ["+61 3 9000 0000"],
  "linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/company/example",
  "facebook": null,
  "instagram": null,
  "twitter_x": "https://x.com/example",
  "youtube": null,
  "pages_scanned": 4
}
```

Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the dataset tab, or pull via API.

### Fair use

Contact Scout reads publicly displayed business contact information only. You
are responsible for complying with the laws that apply to your use of the
data — in particular anti-spam law (consent and unsubscribe requirements
apply to outreach in most countries, including Australia's Spam Act and the
EU's GDPR/ePrivacy rules). Scan sites politely: the Actor rate-limits itself
between pages.

# Actor input Schema

## `start_urls` (type: `array`):

One row per business website. The Actor scans the homepage plus the most contact-likely pages (contact, about, support...).

## `max_pages_per_site` (type: `integer`):

How many pages to scan per website (homepage included). 5 covers most sites; 20 is the cap.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "start_urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://apify.com"
    }
  ],
  "max_pages_per_site": 5
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "start_urls": [
        {
            "url": "https://apify.com"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("popularly_ceremony/contact-scout").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "start_urls": [{ "url": "https://apify.com" }] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("popularly_ceremony/contact-scout").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "start_urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://apify.com"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call popularly_ceremony/contact-scout --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,popularly_ceremony/contact-scout"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/g0GFyZIYJOr4qkSw3/builds/CrBFvcoi6KEKtQnEm/openapi.json