Google Shorts Scraper

What does Google Shorts Scraper do?

Google Shorts Scraper searches public Google Videos results for short-form videos from YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and other supported public video platforms. It is a fast Google video-search API alternative for discovery and monitoring; it does not log in to platforms, solve CAPTCHAs, or crawl private engagement/detail endpoints.

The Actor supports one topic or a batch of up to 20 topics, Google country and language localization, platform filters, publication windows, SafeSearch, bounded pagination, stable IDs, and global deduplication.

Why use Google Shorts Scraper?

• Discover short-form videos around brands, products, people, and trends.
• Compare coverage across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
• Monitor multiple topics in one fairly allocated batch run.
• Schedule searches and consume results through the Apify API, webhooks, and integrations.
• Use the optimized HTTP-only GOOGLE_SERP path in Apify Cloud instead of launching Chrome for every query.
• Retain a fingerprint-consistent Playwright fallback for direct, Residential, and custom proxies.

What data can Google Shorts Scraper extract?

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Stable video ID derived from the platform ID or canonical URL
title	string	Public Google result title
url	string	Canonical public video URL
videoId	string	Platform video ID when it can be derived safely
platform	string	YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or another recognized platform
channelName	string	Creator/channel shown on the Google card, when available
durationSeconds	integer	Parsed duration in seconds
viewCount	integer	Parsed public view count when Google displays it
publishedAt	string	ISO-8601 publication time derived from the displayed date
thumbnail	string	Public thumbnail URL
shortDetection	string	Evidence used to classify the result as short-form
query, position, page	mixed	Search and ranking context

Optional values are omitted when Google does not display them. The Actor does not fabricate likes, comments, shares, follower counts, resolution, or full video metadata merely to fill columns.

How to scrape Google Shorts

1. Open the Actor input tab.
2. Select Single query or Multiple queries.
3. Enter a topic such as funny cats.
4. Optionally select a platform, publication window, country, language, and SafeSearch setting.
5. Set maxItems and maxPages, then run the Actor.
6. Open the dataset or download it as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML.

How much will it cost to scrape Google short videos?

The default production path uses small HTML result pages and normally completes in seconds. Cost depends on your Apify plan, query/page count, proxy selection, retries, and run frequency. GOOGLE_SERP and Residential proxy traffic may have separate proxy charges. Small validation runs should use one or two pages and 5–20 records.

Input

See the input tab for all configuration options. Important fields are:

• mode, query, and queries for one or multiple searches.
• platform: all supported platforms, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, or Facebook Reels.
• timeRange: Google's hour/day/week/month/year publication filter.
• videoDuration: Google's under-four-minute filter or any duration. Results still require explicit short-format URLs or short-duration evidence.
• maxItems, maxPages, and maxConcurrency for bounded runs.
• proxyConfiguration: GOOGLE_SERP is the verified HTTP-only cloud transport. Do not tunnel Playwright through it. Use Residential/custom proxy or direct access for browser mode.

Output

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel. A simplified record looks like this:

{
  "id": "google-short-52bcaebae9b413419bcb721d",
  "position": 1,
  "title": "Example short video",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/example",
  "videoId": "example",
  "platform": "YouTube",
  "channelName": "Example Channel",
  "duration": "0:42",
  "durationSeconds": 42,
  "isShort": true,
  "query": "funny cats",
  "country": "US",
  "language": "en",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-29T10:00:00.000Z"
}

The OUTPUT key-value-store record contains counts, transport, duplicates removed, and runtime without raw responses or proxy credentials.

Tips and advanced options

• Batch mode fetches independent topics concurrently and interleaves results fairly.
• Use the platform filter when only one service matters; it maps to a Google site: query.
• Increase maxPages only when the first page does not satisfy maxItems.
• CAPTCHA/challenge pages fail closed and are never stored or repeatedly retried.
• A genuine no-results search completes successfully with an empty dataset.

FAQ, disclaimer, and support

Why are likes and comments missing?

Google search cards do not reliably expose those fields. Fetching them would require platform-specific detail APIs, logins, or additional crawls. This Actor preserves only source-backed public search metadata.

Can I use GOOGLE_SERP with Playwright?

No. GOOGLE_SERP is an HTTP result-page transport. The Actor detects it and uses direct HTTP requests. Browser mode is reserved for direct, Residential, or custom proxy configurations.

This Actor extracts publicly displayed video-search metadata and does not intentionally extract private user data. Results can still contain names or other personal data published in titles or channel names. Personal data is protected by the GDPR and other laws. Do not process personal data without a legitimate reason; consult legal counsel if unsure.

Use the Actor's Issues tab for feedback and its API tab for programmatic access.