Request a url and scrape the metadata from its HTML using Node.js or the browser.
npm install url-metadataRequest a url and scrape the metadata from its HTML using Node.js or the browser. Has an optional mode that lets you pass in a string of html or a Response object as well (see Options section below).
Includes:
- meta tags
- hreflang
- favicons
- citations, per the Google Scholar spec
- Open Graph Protocol (og:) Tags
- Twitter Card Tags
- JSON-LD
- h1-h6 tags
- img tags
- relevant response headers & status code
- automatic charset detection & decoding (optional)
- the full response body as a string of html (optional)
- x402 "payment required" support
v5.1.0+ Protects against:
- Infinite redirect loops
- SSRF attacks via request-filtering-agent in Node.js v18+ (custom options available)
More details below. To report a bug or request a feature please open an issue or pull request in GitHub. Please read the Troubleshooting section below before filing a bug.
>=6.0.0 or in the browser when bundled with Webpack (see /example-typescript) or Vite (see /example-vite). For Next.js, see /example-nextjs. Use previous version 2.5.0 which uses the (now-deprecated) request module if you don't have access to node-fetch or window.fetch in your target environment.``
npm install url-metadata --save
In your project file:
`javascript
const urlMetadata = require('url-metadata');
(async function () {
try {
const url = 'https://www.npmjs.com/package/url-metadata';
const metadata = await urlMetadata(url);
console.log(metadata);
} catch (err) {
console.log(err);
// Optional: handle x402 "payment required" responses
if (err.paymentRequired && err.x402) {
// Handle x402 payment details
}
}
})();
`
javascript
const options = { // Customize the default request headers:
requestHeaders: {
'User-Agent': 'url-metadata (+https://www.npmjs.com/package/url-metadata)',
From: 'example@example.com'
},
// (Node.js v18+ only)
// To prevent SSRF attacks, the default option below blocks
// requests to private network & reserved IP addresses via:
// https://www.npmjs.com/package/request-filtering-agent
// Browser security policies prevent SSRF automatically.
requestFilteringAgentOptions: undefined,
// (Node.js v6+ only)
// Pass in your own custom
agent to override the
// built-in request filtering agent above
// https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-fetch/v/2.7.0#custom-agent
agent: undefined, // (Browser only)
fetch API cache setting
cache: 'no-cache', // (Browser only)
fetch API mode (ex: 'cors', 'same-origin', etc)
mode: 'cors', // Maximum redirects in request chain, defaults to 10
maxRedirects: 10,
//
fetch timeout in milliseconds, default is 10 seconds
timeout: 10000, // (Node.js v6+ only) max size of response in bytes (uncompressed)
// Default set to 0 to disable max size
size: 0,
// (Node.js v6+ only) compression defaults to true
// Support gzip/deflate content encoding, set
false to disable
compress: true, // Charset to decode response with (ex: 'auto', 'utf-8', 'EUC-JP')
// defaults to auto-detect in
Content-Type header or meta tag
// if none found, default auto option falls back to utf-8
// override by passing in charset here (ex: 'windows-1251'):
decode: 'auto', // Number of characters to truncate description to
descriptionLength: 750,
// Force image urls in selected tags to use https,
// valid for images & favicons with full paths
ensureSecureImageRequest: true,
// Include raw response body as string
includeResponseBody: false,
// Alternate use-case: pass in
object here to be parsed
// see example below
parseResponseObject: undefined
};// Basic options usage
try {
const url = 'https://www.npmjs.com/package/url-metadata';
const metadata = await urlMetadata(url, options);
console.log(metadata);
} catch (err) {
console.log(err);
// Optional: handle x402 "payment required" responses
if (err.paymentRequired && err.x402) {
// Handle x402 payment details
}
}
// Alternate use-case: parse a Response object instead
try {
// fetch the url in your own code
const response = await fetch('https://www.npmjs.com/package/url-metadata');
// ... do other stuff with it...
// pass the
response object to be parsed for its metadata
const metadata = await urlMetadata(null, {
parseResponseObject: response
});
console.log(metadata);
} catch (err) {
console.log(err);
}// Similarly, if you have a string of html you can create
// a response object and pass the html string into it.
const html =
;
const response = new Response(html, {
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'text/html'
}
});
const metadata = await urlMetadata(null, {
parseResponseObject: response
});
console.log(metadata);
`$3
Returns a promise resolved with a JSON object. Note that the field returned will be the last hop in the request chain. If you pass in a url from a url shortener you'll get back the final destination as the url.A basic template for the returned metadata object can be found in
lib/metadata-fields.js. Any additional meta tags found on the page are appended as new fields to the object.The returned
metadata object consists of key/value pairs as strings, with a few exceptions:
- hreflang, favicons, and responseHeaders is an array of objects containing key/value pairs of strings
- jsonld is an array of objects
- all meta tags that begin with citation_ (ex: citation_author) return with keys as strings and values that are an array of strings to conform to the Google Scholar spec which allows for multiple citation meta tags with different content values. So if the html contains:
`
... it will return as:
'citation_author': ["Arlitsch, Kenning", "OBrien, Patrick"],
$3
Issue:
errors. The SSRF filtering agent defaults on this package prevent calls to private ip addresses, link-local addresses and reserved ip addresses. To change or disable this feature you need to pass custom requestFilteringAgentOptions. More info here.Issue:
No fetch implementation found. You're in either an older browser that doesn't have the native fetch API or a Node.js environment that doesn't support node-fetch (Node.js < v6). File a GitHub issue or try dowgrading to url-metadata version 2.5.0 which uses the now-deprecated request module.Issue:
Response status code 0 or CORS errors. The fetch request failed at either the network or protocol level. Possible causes:- CORS errors. Try changing the mode option (ex:
cors, same-origin, etc) or setting the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header on the server response from the url you are requesting if you have access to it.- Trying to access an
https resource that has invalid certificate, or trying to access an http resource from a page with an https origin.- A browser plugin such as an ad-blocker or privacy protector.
Issue: Request returns
404, 403` errors or a CAPTCHA form. Your request may have been blocked by the server because it suspects you are a bot or scraper. Check this list to ensure you're not triggering a block.