---
title: Serper Scrape Website
description: The `SerperScrapeWebsiteTool` is designed to scrape websites and extract clean, readable content using Serper's scraping API.
icon: globe
mode: "wide"
---

# `SerperScrapeWebsiteTool`

## Description

This tool is designed to scrape website content and extract clean, readable text from any website URL. It utilizes the [serper.dev](https://serper.dev) scraping API to fetch and process web pages, optionally including markdown formatting for better structure and readability.

## Installation

To effectively use the `SerperScrapeWebsiteTool`, follow these steps:

1. **Package Installation**: Confirm that the `crewai[tools]` package is installed in your Python environment.
2. **API Key Acquisition**: Acquire a `serper.dev` API key by registering for an account at `serper.dev`.
3. **Environment Configuration**: Store your obtained API key in an environment variable named `SERPER_API_KEY` to facilitate its use by the tool.

To incorporate this tool into your project, follow the installation instructions below:

```shell
pip install 'crewai[tools]'
```

## Example

The following example demonstrates how to initialize the tool and scrape a website:

```python Code
from crewai_tools import SerperScrapeWebsiteTool

# Initialize the tool for website scraping capabilities
tool = SerperScrapeWebsiteTool()

# Scrape a website with markdown formatting
result = tool.run(url="https://example.com", include_markdown=True)
```

## Arguments

The `SerperScrapeWebsiteTool` accepts the following arguments:

- **url**: Required. The URL of the website to scrape.
- **include_markdown**: Optional. Whether to include markdown formatting in the scraped content. Defaults to `True`.

## Example with Parameters

Here is an example demonstrating how to use the tool with different parameters:

```python Code
from crewai_tools import SerperScrapeWebsiteTool

tool = SerperScrapeWebsiteTool()

# Scrape with markdown formatting (default)
markdown_result = tool.run(
    url="https://docs.crewai.com",
    include_markdown=True
)

# Scrape without markdown formatting for plain text
plain_result = tool.run(
    url="https://docs.crewai.com",
    include_markdown=False
)

print("Markdown formatted content:")
print(markdown_result)

print("\nPlain text content:")
print(plain_result)
```

## Use Cases

The `SerperScrapeWebsiteTool` is particularly useful for:

- **Content Analysis**: Extract and analyze website content for research purposes
- **Data Collection**: Gather structured information from web pages
- **Documentation Processing**: Convert web-based documentation into readable formats
- **Competitive Analysis**: Scrape competitor websites for market research
- **Content Migration**: Extract content from existing websites for migration purposes

## Error Handling

The tool includes comprehensive error handling for:

- **Network Issues**: Handles connection timeouts and network errors gracefully
- **API Errors**: Provides detailed error messages for API-related issues
- **Invalid URLs**: Validates and reports issues with malformed URLs
- **Authentication**: Clear error messages for missing or invalid API keys

## Security Considerations

- Always store your `SERPER_API_KEY` in environment variables, never hardcode it in your source code
- Be mindful of rate limits imposed by the Serper API
- Respect robots.txt and website terms of service when scraping content
- Consider implementing delays between requests for large-scale scraping operations