Google Ads Transparency Scraper

This Apify actor scrapes Google's Ad Transparency Center to check if domains are running ads and extracts ad creatives with OCR text extraction.

Features

• Checks if domains are running Google Ads
• Extracts ad creatives (images and videos)
• Performs OCR on image ads to extract text
• Handles YouTube video thumbnails and links
• Provides detailed statistics and progress tracking
• Configurable concurrency for faster processing
• Robust error handling and retries

Input

The actor accepts the following input parameters:

{
    "domains": [
        "example.com",
        "example.org"
    ],
    "maxConcurrency": 1, // Optional, default: 1, max: 10
    "timePeriod": "Last 30 days", // Optional, default: "Last 30 days"
    "startDate": "2018-06-08", // Optional, required if timePeriod is "Custom" (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
    "endDate": "2018-06-15", // Optional, required if timePeriod is "Custom" (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
    "platform": "All" // Optional, default: "All" - filter by Google platform
}

• domains: Array of domains to check for ads (required)
• maxConcurrency: Maximum number of domains to process concurrently (optional)
• timePeriod: Time period to check ads for (optional). Options:
  • "Today" - Check ads from today
  • "Yesterday" - Check ads from yesterday
  • "Last 7 days" - Check ads from the last 7 days
  • "Last 30 days" - Check ads from the last 30 days (default)
  • "Custom" - Use custom date range (requires startDate and endDate)
• startDate: Start date for custom date range (format: YYYY-MM-DD). Required if timePeriod is "Custom"
• endDate: End date for custom date range (format: YYYY-MM-DD). Required if timePeriod is "Custom"
• platform: Google platform to filter ads by (optional). Options:
  • "All" - Check ads across all platforms (default)
  • "SEARCH" - Google Search ads only
  • "YOUTUBE" - YouTube ads only
  • "SHOPPING" - Google Shopping ads only
  • "MAPS" - Google Maps ads only
  • "PLAY" - Google Play ads only

Output

The actor saves results to its default dataset. Each item contains:

{
    "domain": "example.com",
    "ads_running": true,
    "creatives": [
        {
            "type": "image",
            "url": "https://..."
        },
        {
            "type": "video",
            "url": "https://..."
        }
    ],
    "ad_texts": [
        "Extracted text from image 1",
        "Extracted text from image 2"
    ],
    "time_period": "Last 30 days",
    "start_date": null,
    "end_date": null,
    "platform": "All",
    "error": null, // Error message if scraping failed
    "timestamp": "2024-03-21T12:34:56.789Z"
}

Usage

1. Create a new task for the actor
2. Provide input:

   {
       "domains": ["example.com"],
       "maxConcurrency": 1,
       "timePeriod": "Last 7 days",
       "platform": "YOUTUBE"
   }
   

3. Run the task
4. Get results from the dataset

Performance and Limits

• Memory: 4096 MB
• Timeout: 4 hours
• Concurrency: 1-10 domains in parallel
• Rate limiting: 2 second delay between requests

Dependencies

• Python 3.9
• Chrome browser
• Tesseract OCR
• Key Python packages:
  • selenium
  • pytesseract
  • aiohttp
  • Pillow
  • apify-client

Error Handling

The actor implements robust error handling:

• Automatic retries for transient errors
• Graceful degradation for OCR failures
• Detailed error reporting in output
• Progress tracking and statistics

Development

1. Install dependencies:

   $pip install -r requirements.txt
   

2. Install system dependencies:

   $apt-get install tesseract-ocr
   

3. Run locally:

   $python main.py
   

License

Apache 2.0