Cylex UK Business Directory Scraper

Scrape business listings from Cylex UK, one of the UK's leading business directories. Extract comprehensive business information including contact details, opening hours, descriptions, categories, gallery images, and more.

🚀 Features

• Comprehensive Data Extraction: Get business names, addresses, phone numbers, opening hours, descriptions, categories, products & services, websites, social media links, gallery images, and contact persons
• Smart Pagination: Automatically handles multiple pages of search results
• Fast Processing: Processes multiple business pages efficiently
• Data Merging: Combines search results with detailed business page information
• Duplicate Prevention: Automatically removes duplicate phone numbers (handles different formatting)
• Flexible Options: Control how many pages or results to scrape, and whether to get detailed information

📋 Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
search_keyword	string	Yes	"antiques"	The keyword to search for businesses (e.g., 'antiques', 'restaurants', 'plumbers')
place	string	Yes	"Chester"	The location/place to search in (e.g., 'Chester', 'London', 'Manchester')
get_business_details	boolean	No	true	Whether to scrape detailed information from individual business pages
max_pages	integer	No	0	Maximum number of search result pages to scrape (0 = unlimited)
max_results	integer	No	0	Maximum number of results to scrape (0 = unlimited)

📤 Output

The Actor outputs structured JSON data to the default dataset. Each record contains:

{
  "business_name": "Example Business",
  "address": "123 Main Street, City, County, Postcode",
  "url": "https://chester.cylex-uk.co.uk/company/example-business-12345678.html",
  "phone_numbers": ["01234567890", "+44 1234 567890"],
  "opening_hours": "Monday: 09:00 - 17:00 | Tuesday: 09:00 - 17:00 | ...",
  "short_description": "Business description text...",
  "categories": ["Category 1", "Category 2"],
  "products_services": ["Service 1", "Service 2"],
  "website": "https://example.com",
  "social_media": ["https://facebook.com/example", "https://twitter.com/example"],
  "facebook_message_button": "https://facebook.com/messages/t/example",
  "gallery_images": ["https://media.cylex-uk.co.uk/companies/.../image1.jpg"],
  "contact_persons": [
    {
      "name": "John Doe",
      "role": "Manager",
      "department": "Sales",
      "contact_url": "https://chester.cylex-uk.co.uk/company/..."
    }
  ]
}

Output Fields

• business_name: Name of the business
• address: Full business address
• url: URL of the business listing on Cylex UK
• phone_numbers: Array of phone numbers (duplicates automatically removed)
• opening_hours: Formatted opening hours string
• short_description: Business description
• categories: Array of business categories and keywords
• products_services: Array of products and services offered
• website: Business website URL
• social_media: Array of social media profile URLs
• facebook_message_button: Facebook Messenger link (if available)
• gallery_images: Array of gallery image URLs
• contact_persons: Array of contact person objects with name, role, department, and contact URL

🛠️ How to Use

Quick Start on Apify Platform

1. Go to Apify Console
2. Find the "Cylex UK Scraper" Actor
3. Configure your input parameters:
   • Enter your search keyword (e.g., "plumbers", "restaurants")
   • Enter the location (e.g., "London", "Manchester")
   • Choose whether to get detailed business information
   • Set limits for pages or results (optional)
4. Click "Start" to run the scraper
5. Download your results from the Dataset tab when finished

Example Use Cases

Find all plumbers in London:

{
  "search_keyword": "plumbers",
  "place": "London",
  "get_business_details": true,
  "max_results": 100
}

Get basic listings for restaurants in Manchester (faster, less detailed):

{
  "search_keyword": "restaurants",
  "place": "Manchester",
  "get_business_details": false,
  "max_pages": 3
}

Scrape all antiques shops in Chester:

{
  "search_keyword": "antiques",
  "place": "Chester",
  "get_business_details": true,
  "max_pages": 0,
  "max_results": 0
}

📊 Getting Your Data

After the Actor finishes running:

1. Go to the Dataset tab in the Apify Console
2. Click "View" to see all scraped records
3. Use the "Download" button to export data as:
   • JSON
   • CSV
   • Excel
   • XML
   • HTML table

You can also access the data programmatically using the Apify API.

📝 Notes

• Phone numbers are automatically deduplicated (handles different formatting)
• Gallery images are extracted when available on business pages
• Contact persons are only included if available on the business page
• Some fields may be empty if the business hasn't provided that information

🤝 Support

For issues, questions, or help:

• Check the Apify documentation
• Visit Apify Community
• Review the Actor logs for detailed information about the scraping process

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Built with ❤️ using Apify