Search · Map · Crawl — one platform, one API key

The full data collection
pipeline in one place.

Search finds pages. Map discovers site structure. Crawl extracts content at scale. Three APIs, one workflow — with anti-bot bypass built in at every step.

How the Pipeline Works

Each stage feeds the next. The output of Search or Map is a URL list — exactly what Crawl takes as input.

Stage 1Search

$0.001 / search

Submit a query — get structured SERP results from Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo. Each result includes title, URL, snippet, position, and domain as structured JSON.

Stage 2Map

$0.0005 / domain map

Submit a domain — get every URL on the site. AlterLab parses sitemaps and crawls link graphs to return a complete URL inventory. Filter by pattern or depth.

Stage 3Crawl

$0.0002 – $0.004 / page

Submit a URL list — get structured content for every page. HTML, Markdown, metadata, screenshots. 5-tier anti-bot bypass on every page automatically.

Pipeline output format: Search returns organic_results[].url. Map returns urls[]. Both are URL lists — pass them directly to Crawl's urls parameter. No transformation needed.

Real-World Pipeline Examples

Three complete end-to-end workflows — copy and adapt for your use case.

Competitive Intelligence Pipeline

Map a competitor's site structure, crawl all their blog posts, and build a searchable knowledge base in minutes.

python
import alterlab

client = alterlab.Client(api_key="YOUR_KEY")

# Step 1: Map competitor site to discover all URLs
map_result = client.map("https://competitor.com", max_urls=2000)
blog_urls = [u for u in map_result.urls if "/blog/" in u]

# Step 2: Crawl all blog pages for full content
crawl = client.crawl(
    urls=blog_urls,
    formats=["markdown"],
    max_concurrent=10,
)

# Step 3: Search for competitor brand mentions
mentions = client.search(
    "competitor brand name site:reddit.com",
    num_results=20,
    scrape_results=True,
)

print(f"Crawled {len(crawl.results)} blog posts")
print(f"Found {len(mentions.organic_results)} brand mentions")

SEO Audit Pipeline

Discover all pages on a domain, search for ranking keywords, and cross-reference content to find gaps.

python
import alterlab

client = alterlab.Client(api_key="YOUR_KEY")

# Step 1: Map the full site structure
site_map = client.map("https://yoursite.com", max_urls=5000)
product_pages = [u for u in site_map.urls if "/products/" in u]

# Step 2: Search for keywords you want to rank for
serp = client.search(
    "best web scraping api 2026",
    engine="google",
    num_results=10,
    scrape_results=True,
)

# Step 3: Crawl your product pages to compare content
your_pages = client.crawl(
    urls=product_pages[:50],
    formats=["markdown", "metadata"],
)

# Analyze content gaps vs top-ranking pages
top_competitor_content = [r.content for r in serp.organic_results]
your_content = [p.markdown for p in your_pages.results]

AI Knowledge Base Builder

Search for authoritative sources, map their full site structure, and crawl all pages into a Markdown corpus for RAG or fine-tuning.

python
import alterlab

client = alterlab.Client(api_key="YOUR_KEY")

# Step 1: Find authoritative sources via search
sources = client.search(
    "machine learning documentation tutorials",
    num_results=5,
)
source_domains = list({r.domain for r in sources.organic_results})

# Step 2: Map each source domain for full URL inventory
all_urls = []
for domain in source_domains:
    result = client.map(f"https://{domain}", max_urls=500)
    doc_urls = [u for u in result.urls if "/docs/" in u or "/guide" in u]
    all_urls.extend(doc_urls)

# Step 3: Crawl everything into Markdown
corpus = client.crawl(
    urls=all_urls,
    formats=["markdown"],
    max_concurrent=20,
)

print(f"Knowledge base: {len(corpus.results)} documents")
print(f"Total size: {sum(len(p.markdown) for p in corpus.results):,} chars")

Pipeline Pricing

Pay only for what you use. No subscriptions, no monthly minimums. Balance never expires.

Typical competitive intelligence run

10 search queries@ $0.001/query
$0.010
5 domain maps@ $0.0005/map
$0.003
500 pages crawled@ $0.0002/page basic HTML
$0.100
Total pipeline cost$0.113
$0.001
Search API

Per query. SERP results from Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo.

$0.0005
Map API

Per domain. Full URL inventory including sitemap parsing.

$0.0002+
Crawl API

Per page. Basic HTML to $0.004 for JS-rendered pages.

Why One Platform

Most teams stitch together separate vendors for search, crawling, and proxies. AlterLab removes the integration overhead.

One API key

Search, Map, and Crawl all authenticate with the same key. One integration, one dashboard, one billing balance.

Consistent response format

Every API returns the same base envelope. The URL list from Map feeds directly into Crawl — no transformation or adapter code needed.

Anti-bot bypass at every stage

SERP bypass, sitemap fetching, and page crawling all run through the same 5-tier anti-bot pipeline. No per-step configuration.

Unified pricing

One balance covers all three APIs. No per-product subscriptions, no separate billing systems to reconcile.

Pay only for successes

Failed pages, blocked requests, and timeouts are retried automatically. You are only charged when content is successfully returned.

No monthly minimum

Run one pipeline a month or ten thousand. Your balance never expires. Scale up and down without contract changes.

Your first scrape.
Sixty seconds.

$1 free balance. No credit card. No SDK.Just a POST request.

terminal
curl -X POST https://api.alterlab.io/v1/scrape \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com", "formats": ["markdown"]}'

No credit card required · Up to 5,000 free scrapes · Balance never expire