Freelancer.com Jobs Scraper

Extract freelance job opportunities from Freelancer.com with precision and speed. This powerful data extraction tool helps freelancers, agencies, and market researchers gather comprehensive job listings including project details, budgets, required skills, and client information.

What Does This Scraper Do?

This automation tool systematically collects job postings from Freelancer.com across any category or search criteria. Whether you're tracking SEO projects, web development gigs, or graphic design opportunities, this scraper delivers structured, ready-to-use data.

Key Capabilities

• Multi-Category Search - Target specific job categories (SEO, web development, design, writing, etc.)
• Smart Data Extraction - Automatically extracts titles, budgets, job types, skills, descriptions, and posting dates
• Flexible Filtering - Filter by budget range, job type (fixed/hourly), and custom keywords
• Automatic Pagination - Seamlessly navigates through multiple pages to collect large datasets
• Detailed Scraping Mode - Optional deep-dive into individual job pages for complete project descriptions
• JSON-LD Support - Prioritizes structured data extraction for accuracy and speed
• Fallback HTML Parsing - Ensures data capture even when structured data is unavailable

Use Cases

For Freelancers:

• Monitor job opportunities in your niche automatically
• Analyze market rates and common project requirements
• Identify trending skills and technologies in demand

For Agencies & Recruiters:

• Build prospect lists of active project posters
• Track competitor activity and market trends
• Generate leads from businesses posting freelance work

For Market Researchers:

• Analyze freelance market trends across industries
• Study pricing patterns and budget distributions
• Identify emerging skill demands and hiring patterns

Input Configuration

Configure your scraping job with these parameters:

Basic Search Options

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
category	String	Job category slug (e.g., 'seo', 'web-development')	seo
keyword	String	Search keyword or skill filter	seo
startUrl	String	Custom Freelancer.com jobs URL (overrides category/keyword)	-

Filtering Options

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
jobType	Select	Filter by 'all', 'fixed', or 'hourly' projects	all
minBudget	Integer	Minimum project budget in USD	-
maxBudget	Integer	Maximum project budget in USD	-
sortBy	Select	Sort by 'relevance', 'newest', or 'budget'	relevance

Scraping Control

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
collectDetails	Boolean	Extract full job descriptions and details	true
results_wanted	Integer	Maximum number of jobs to collect (1-1000)	100
max_pages	Integer	Safety limit on pages to crawl (1-100)	20

Advanced Settings

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
proxyConfiguration	Object	Proxy settings (residential recommended)	Apify Residential
dedupe	Boolean	Remove duplicate job listings	true
cookies	String	Custom cookie header (optional)	-
cookiesJson	String	JSON-formatted cookies array (optional)	-

Output Data Format

Each extracted job listing contains:

{
  "title": "SEO Expert Needed for E-commerce Website",
  "company": "Tech Solutions Inc.",
  "category": "seo",
  "location": "Remote",
  "salary": "$250-$750 USD",
  "job_type": "Fixed Price",
  "skills": ["SEO", "Link Building", "Keyword Research", "Google Analytics"],
  "date_posted": "2025-12-09",
  "description_html": "<p>Full HTML description...</p>",
  "description_text": "Plain text version of the job description...",
  "url": "https://www.freelancer.com/projects/seo/...",
  "_source": "freelancer.com"
}

Data Fields Explained

• title - Job/project title
• company - Client or employer name
• category - Job category classification
• location - Geographic location (often "Remote" for Freelancer.com)
• salary - Budget or salary range
• job_type - Fixed price or hourly project
• skills - Array of required skills and technologies
• date_posted - When the job was posted
• description_html - Full job description with HTML formatting
• description_text - Plain text description without HTML tags
• url - Direct link to the job posting

How to Use

Quick Start Example

1. Choose Your Category

   • Browse Freelancer.com/jobs to find category slugs
   • Common categories: seo, web-development, graphic-design, writing, data-entry

2. Set Your Parameters

   {
     "category": "seo",
     "results_wanted": 50,
     "jobType": "fixed",
     "minBudget": 100,
     "collectDetails": true
   }
   

3. Run and Export

   • Start the actor
   • Download results in JSON, CSV, or Excel format
   • Integrate with your workflow via API

Advanced Usage

Custom URL Scraping:

{
  "startUrl": "https://www.freelancer.com/jobs/seo?sort=newest",
  "results_wanted": 100,
  "collectDetails": true
}

Budget-Filtered Search:

{
  "category": "web-development",
  "minBudget": 500,
  "maxBudget": 2000,
  "jobType": "fixed",
  "results_wanted": 200
}

Performance & Limits

• Speed: Processes 50-100 jobs in 2-5 minutes (with detail scraping)
• Maximum Results: Up to 1000 jobs per run
• Recommended: Use residential proxies for best reliability
• Rate Limiting: Built-in delays prevent blocking

Best Practices

✅ Do:

• Use residential proxies for consistent results
• Enable collectDetails for comprehensive data
• Set reasonable results_wanted limits (50-200 for most use cases)
• Filter by budget and job type to get relevant results

❌ Avoid:

• Excessive scraping without proxies
• Collecting more data than needed (slows performance)
• Running multiple instances on the same category simultaneously

Technical Details

Architecture

• Framework: Apify SDK + Crawlee
• HTTP Client: got-scraping with header rotation
• Parser: Cheerio for efficient HTML parsing
• Data Priority: JSON-LD → HTML selectors → fallback parsing

Proxy Requirements

• Recommended: Apify Residential Proxy
• Minimum: Datacenter proxies may work but increase block risk
• Configuration: Automatically included in default settings

Troubleshooting

Issue: No results returned

• Solution: Verify category slug is correct, try a different keyword, or use a custom startUrl

Issue: Incomplete data extraction

• Solution: Enable collectDetails to visit individual job pages

Issue: Scraper getting blocked

• Solution: Ensure residential proxies are enabled in proxyConfiguration

Issue: Duplicate results

• Solution: Enable dedupe option (enabled by default)

Data Export Options

Export your scraped data in multiple formats:

• JSON - For API integration and processing
• CSV - For spreadsheet analysis
• Excel - For business reporting
• HTML - For quick viewing
• RSS - For feed integration

Integration & API

Access your data programmatically:

// JavaScript example
const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('YOUR_ACTOR_ID').call({
  category: 'seo',
  results_wanted: 100
});

const dataset = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(dataset.items);

Support & Updates

This scraper is actively maintained and regularly updated to adapt to website changes. Data extraction reliability is continuously monitored and optimized.

Need Help? Check the input parameters carefully and ensure your configuration matches your data collection goals.

Legal & Ethical Use

This tool is designed for legitimate business intelligence, market research, and personal job searching purposes. Users are responsible for:

• Complying with Freelancer.com's Terms of Service
• Respecting rate limits and website resources
• Using collected data ethically and legally
• Following data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)

Version History

v1.0.0 - Initial release

• Multi-category job scraping
• JSON-LD and HTML parsing
• Budget and job type filtering
• Automatic pagination
• Detailed job data extraction

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Ready to extract valuable freelance market data? Configure your search parameters and start scraping Freelancer.com jobs efficiently.