Skip to main content
The Extract API converts any public URL into clean, LLM-optimized markdown—handling JavaScript-heavy pages and PDFs automatically. Extract focused excerpts aligned to your objective or retrieve full page content as needed.
Beta Notice: This API is currently in beta and subject to change, and requires the parallel-beta: search-extract-2025-10-10 header. Usage is limited to 600 requests per minute; for production access or higher capacity, contact support@parallel.ai.

​
Key Benefits

  • Search with Natural Language: Describe what you’re looking for in plain language and handle complex, multi-faceted queries in a single request—no need for multiple overlapping keyword searches.
  • Intelligent Token Efficiency: Automatically include only the tokens necessary for the task at hand. Simple factual queries return concise excerpts; complex research objectives return comprehensive content. No wasted tokens on irrelevant information.
  • Advanced Content Extraction: Extract clean, structured markdown from any web page—even those requiring JavaScript execution or PDF rendering. Focus extraction on your specific objective to get only relevant content, or retrieve full page content when needed.
  • Speed: Reduce latency and improve quality by replacing multi-step pipelines with fewer, smarter API calls.
  • Quality: Powered by Parallel’s web-scale index with advanced ranking that prioritizes relevance, clarity, and source reliability.

​
Request Fields

The Extract API accepts the following parameters. The urls field is required; all other fields are optional. See the API Reference for complete parameter specifications and constraints.
FieldTypeDefaultNotesExample
urlsstring[]-List of URLs to extract content from. Maximum 10 URLs per request.[“https://example.com/article”]
objectivestringoptionalNatural-language description of what information you’re looking for, including broader task context. When provided, focuses extracted content on relevant information. Maximum 3000 characters.”I’m researching React performance optimization. Find best practices for preventing unnecessary re-renders.”
search_queriesstring[]optionalOptional keyword queries to focus extraction. Use with or without objective to emphasize specific terms.[“React.memo”, “useMemo”, “useCallback”]
fetch_policyobjectdynamicControls when to return indexed vs fresh content. If not provided, a dynamic policy will be used based on the search objective and url. See Fetch Policy below.{"max_age_seconds": 3600}
excerptsbool or objecttrueReturn focused excerpts relevant to objective/queries. Set to false to disable or pass settings object.true or {"max_chars_per_result": 5000}
full_contentbool or objectfalseReturn complete page content. Set to true to enable or pass settings object.false or {"max_chars_per_result": 50000}

​
Fetch Policy

The fetch_policy parameter controls when to return indexed content (faster) or fetch fresh content from the source (fresher). Fetching fresh content may take up to a minute and is subject to rate limits to manage the load on source websites.
FieldTypeDefaultNotes
max_age_secondsintdynamicMaximum age of indexed content in seconds. If older, fetches live. Minimum 600 (10 minutes). If unspecified, uses dynamic policy based on URL and objective.
timeout_secondsnumberdynamicTimeout for fetching live content. If unspecified, uses uses a dynamic timeout based on URL and content type (typically 15s-60s).
disable_cache_fallbackboolfalseIf true, returns an error when live fetch fails. If false, falls back to older indexed content.

​
Excerpt and Full Content Settings

Both excerpts and full_content accept either a boolean or a settings object. Boolean usage: 
{
  "excerpts": true,
  "full_content": false
}
Settings object: 
{
  "excerpts": {
    "max_chars_per_result": 5000
  },
  "full_content": {
    "max_chars_per_result": 50000
  }
}
Notes:
  • When both excerpts and full_content are enabled, you’ll receive both in the response
  • Excerpts are always focused on relevance; full content always starts from the beginning
  • Without objective or search_queries, excerpts will be redundant with full content

​
Best Practices

See Search Best Practices on using objective and search queries effectively.