Yellow pages Kenya Scraper

A reliable and efficient Apify actor that scrapes business listings from Yellow Pages Kenya. Extracts clean, verified contact information including names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, and websites.

✨ Features

• 🔍 Smart Category Search - Search by business category (hotels, restaurants, dentists, etc.)
• 📞 Clean Contact Data - Automatically filters placeholder emails and phone numbers
• 🌐 Website Extraction - Finds real business websites (filters out social media)
• 📄 Automatic Pagination - Scrapes multiple pages until maxItems reached
• 🔒 Proxy Support - Built-in Apify Proxy support with optimized settings
• ⚡ Optimized Performance - Handles 50-100 businesses efficiently (~10-18 minutes)
• 🎯 High Data Quality - 85-95% success rate with accurate information

📊 What Gets Scraped

Each business listing includes:

Field	Description	Success Rate
name	Business name (cleaned)	100%
phone	Kenyan phone numbers in +254 format	85-95%
email	Business email addresses	70-85%
address	Physical address in Kenya	60-75%
url	Business website (excludes social media)	40-60%

Sample Output

[
  {
    "name": "Hilton Nairobi",
    "phone": "+254719026000, +254732120000",
    "email": "hilton_nairobi@hilton.com",
    "address": "Mama Ngina Street, Nairobi",
    "url": "https://www.hilton.com/nairobi"
  },
  {
    "name": "Sarova Stanley Hotel",
    "phone": "+254202228830",
    "email": "stanley@sarovahotels.com",
    "address": "Corner Kenyatta Avenue & Kimathi Street, Nairobi",
    "url": "https://www.sarovahotels.com"
  }
]

🚀 Quick Start

Basic Usage

{
  "searchTerm": "hotels",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

Common Search Categories

• Hospitality: hotels, restaurants, bars, cafeterias
• Healthcare: dental-clinic, doctors, hospitals, pharmacies
• Professional: lawyers-advocates, accountants, real-estate-agents
• Construction: building-contractors, plumbers, electricians
• Beauty: beauty-salons, beauty-salons-spas, fitness-centres
• Automotive: motorvehicle-dealers-new, garages, car-wash
• Technology: website-designers, software-developers, computers-hardware-maintenance

⚙️ Input Configuration

Required Fields

searchTerm (string)

The business category to search for. Use lowercase with hyphens.

Examples:

• "hotels" - Hotels and lodging
• "dental-clinic" - Dental clinics and dentists
• "real-estate-agents" - Real estate agencies
• "restaurants" - Restaurants and eateries

maxItems (integer)

Maximum number of businesses to scrape.

Recommendations:

• Testing: 10-20 items (~2-4 minutes)
• Production: 50 items (~10 minutes)
• Large scrapes: 100 items (~18 minutes)
• Unlimited: Set to 0 (not recommended due to time)

Optional Fields

startUrls (array)

Direct URLs to scrape instead of using search. Useful for specific business pages.

{
  "startUrls": [
    {"url": "https://www.yellowpageskenya.com/business-category/hotels"}
  ]
}

proxyConfiguration (object)

Proxy settings for the scraper.

Recommended (Datacenter):

{
  "useApifyProxy": true,
  "apifyProxyGroups": ["SHADER"]
}

For Difficult Sites (Residential):

{
  "useApifyProxy": true,
  "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
}

No Proxy (Testing Only):

{
  "useApifyProxy": false
}

📈 Performance & Costs

Scraping Time

Items	Time	Memory Used
10	~2 min	1.5 GB
20	~4 min	1.5 GB
50	~10 min	2 GB
100	~18 min	2 GB

Cost Estimates

Compute Units:

• 50 businesses: 0.02 CU ($0.005)
• 100 businesses: 0.04 CU ($0.01)

Proxy Costs:

• Datacenter (SHADER): ~$0.10-0.20 per 100 businesses
• Residential: ~$2-3 per 100 businesses

Total per 100 businesses:

• Datacenter: ~$0.21
• Residential: ~$3.01

🎯 Best Practices

1. Start Small

Always test with 10-20 items first to verify the category works.

2. Use Correct Category Names

Yellow Pages Kenya uses specific category URLs:

• ✅ "dental-clinic" (correct)
• ❌ "dentists" (will work but might get different results)
• ❌ "Dental Clinic" (case matters)

3. Monitor Your First Run

Check the logs for:

• Success rate (should be >85%)
• Proxy errors (minimal)
• Data quality (no placeholders)

4. Batch Large Scrapes

Instead of scraping 200 items at once:

• Run 4 times with 50 items each
• More reliable and easier to debug

5. Use Datacenter Proxies

Unless you're getting blocked, use SHADER (datacenter) proxies:

• 10x cheaper than residential
• Faster performance
• Sufficient for most cases

⚠️ Important Notes

What Gets Filtered Out

The actor automatically removes:

• ❌ Placeholder phone numbers: +254 700 000 000, 0551037607
• ❌ Template emails: info@yellowpageskenya.com, contact@company.com
• ❌ Placeholder URLs: paginasamarelas.co.ao, leafletjs.com
• ❌ Social media links: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn
• ❌ Invalid Kenyan phone numbers

Data Quality

Expected Results:

• 85-95% of businesses will have phone numbers
• 70-85% will have email addresses
• 40-60% will have websites
• 60-75% will have addresses

Some businesses legitimately don't have:

• Email addresses (phone-only businesses)
• Websites (local shops, street vendors)
• Complete addresses (mobile services)

This is normal and expected!

🐛 Troubleshooting

Issue: Actor Times Out

Solution:

1. Reduce maxItems to 50 or less
2. Increase timeout in actor settings (25+ minutes recommended)
3. Use datacenter proxies instead of residential

Issue: Many Proxy Errors

Symptoms: Logs show ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED

Solution:

1. Reduce maxItems to 20
2. Switch to residential proxies:

   "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
   

3. Wait 5-10 minutes and try again

Issue: No Results Found

Possible Causes:

• Category name is incorrect
• Category exists but has no listings
• Website structure changed

Solution:

1. Check Yellow Pages Kenya website manually
2. Try a common category like "hotels" to verify actor works
3. Use startUrls with direct category URL

Issue: Too Many Placeholder Emails/Phones

This should not happen with the current version, but if it does:

• Report the issue with examples
• The actor filters these automatically

🔄 Integration with n8n

This actor works seamlessly with n8n workflows. Use the HTTP Request node:

// n8n HTTP Request Node
{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_ACTOR_ID/run-sync-get-dataset-items",
  "qs": {
    "token": "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN",
    "timeout": 600
  },
  "body": {
    "searchTerm": "hotels",
    "maxItems": 50,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
      "useApifyProxy": true
    }
  }
}

📞 Use Cases

1. Cold Email Outreach

• Scrape businesses in your target industry
• Verify emails with services like Reoon
• Create personalized email campaigns

2. Lead Generation

• Build prospect lists for B2B sales
• Export to CRM systems
• Enrich with additional data sources

3. Market Research

• Analyze business density by category
• Identify competitors in specific regions
• Track industry trends

4. Data Enrichment

• Complete existing business databases
• Verify contact information
• Update outdated records

🛠️ Advanced Configuration

Custom Category URL

If you know the exact Yellow Pages category URL:

{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.yellowpageskenya.com/business-category/hotels"
    }
  ],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

Multiple Categories

Run the actor multiple times with different categories, or create a workflow that loops through categories.

📜 Changelog

Version 1.0.1 (Current)

• ✅ Fixed proxy timeout issues
• ✅ Optimized concurrency (5→2) for reliability
• ✅ Added rate limiting (30 requests/min)
• ✅ Improved session management
• ✅ Reduced wait times for faster scraping
• ✅ Better error handling and logging
• ✅ Default memory: 2048 MB
• ✅ Default timeout: 25 minutes

Version 1.0.0

• Initial release
• Basic scraping functionality
• Proxy support

📝 Notes

• Data Freshness: Data is scraped in real-time from Yellow Pages Kenya
• Legal: Scraping publicly available business information for legitimate purposes
• Rate Limits: Actor respects website resources with built-in rate limiting
• Support: For issues, contact via Apify Console

🎓 Tips for Success

1. Test First: Always run with 10-20 items before large scrapes
2. Check Logs: Monitor for errors and adjust settings accordingly
3. Batch Processing: Split large scrapes into smaller runs
4. Data Validation: Use email verification services for best results
5. Stay Updated: Yellow Pages Kenya may update their website structure

🌟 Happy Scraping!

This actor is optimized for reliability and data quality. For best results:

• Start with small batches
• Use datacenter proxies
• Monitor your first run
• Adjust based on results

Need help? Check the troubleshooting section or contact support via Apify Console.

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License: Apache-2.0
Author: Apify Community
Maintained: Yes ✅
Last Updated: October 2025