Merchant Website Underwriting Check

Public-site screening signals for payments onboarding and periodic merchant review. Submit merchant domains, then review policy pages, category keyword leads, payment technology and domain registration date in one dataset. This does not verify a legal entity, certify compliance or approve/decline a merchant. A human must review findings.

Scope

• Reads the homepage and up to six same-site policy/contact/shipping pages linked from it. A footer link alone does not count as a published policy. A found policy page needs both a matching title/path and matching visible text. Results include checked page URLs and policy URLs.
• Checks for selected high-review terms on visible page text and reports only category and URL, not excerpts. A mention may be negated, historic or incidental. There is no jurisdictional prohibition verdict.
• Reports PSP/BNPL and platform hints from the public page using the Payment Stack Detector signature library. A missing gateway is GATEWAY_NOT_CONFIRMED, not proof it is absent.
• Gets domain registration date from official registry RDAP services selected by the IANA DNS bootstrap. If the registry does not disclose it or RDAP is unavailable, age is unknown. Registration date is not the operating age or ownership history of the business. Registrant details are not read into the output.
• Skips pages disallowed by robots.txt, fails closed when robots.txt cannot be verified, stays on same registered domain via HTTPS, does not log in, add to cart, submit a form or use personal data. Rate is limited by input concurrency. Some sites' terms may be more restrictive than robots.txt; operators should check their own target-specific permissions.

Input

{"domains":["allbirds.com","huel.com"],"maxPolicyPages":6,"checkRdap":true,"concurrency":3}

Use at most 1,000 domains per run. maxPolicyPages 0-10; concurrency 1-10. Only public HTTPS destinations are accepted. Timeouts and blocked pages return an error. No proxy or captcha bypass.

Output

{
  "domain": "merchant.example",
  "checkedPageCount": 3,
  "policies": { "returns": { "status": "page_found", "urls": ["https://merchant.example/policies/returns"] }, "privacy": {"status":"not_found_on_checked_pages","urls":[]} },
  "categorySignals": [{"category":"controlled","label":"Controlled-substance term","pageUrl":"https://merchant.example/","note":"Keyword in page text; may be incidental or negated. Human review required."}],
  "paymentStack": {"platform":"Shopify","gateways":[],"bnpl":[]},
  "rdap": {"status":"found","registrationDate":"2020-01-01","ageDays":2459},
  "reviewFlags": ["CHECK_PRIVACY_DISCLOSURE", "REVIEW_CATEGORY_TERMS", "GATEWAY_NOT_CONFIRMED"]
}

Example above is illustrative. Actual data includes all five policy categories (returns, terms, privacy, contact, shipping), all reviewed pages, timestamp, errors and the interpretation caveat.

Development

npm ci
npm test
APIFY_LOCAL_STORAGE_DIR=./storage npm start

For a local run, write storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json with your input. The offline tests cover URL safety, link selection, policy evidence, keyword caveats, RDAP and bot blocks. Deploy to an Apify account only after its owner has reviewed the Store page and price.

Proposed Store pricing (not configured or published)

$0.07 per successfully screened domain, with no charge for a blocked or failed homepage. Estimate only; run-time costs and demand must be measured in Apify before setting final price. This Actor uses pay-per-event domain-screened; configure that event in Console before publishing.

Limits and disclaimer

Absence from sampled pages is not absence from the website. Legal compliance depends on product, geography, merchant agreement and processor policy. Keyword triggers are intentionally broad. This is not a sanction-screening or identity-verification tool. Privacy, returns and delivery content are located, not judged for sufficiency or legal correctness. This Actor is unofficial and not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Apify, Visa, Mastercard, any registry or any technology provider mentioned.

Sources: IANA RDAP bootstrap, RDAP response specification, Apify pricing and costs.