# Start using Web Scraper API

### Create an API user <a href="#h_b23676f1bf" id="h_b23676f1bf"></a>

Begin by creating an account on the [Oxylabs dashboard](https://dashboard.oxylabs.io/en/). After that, select a pricing plan or pick a free trial and create an API user. Your credentials will be your key for user authorization later on.

Once your credentials are set up, you can start sending requests immediately without configuring proxies, browsers, or scraping logic.

### Make a cURL request <a href="#h_7cafcc629d" id="h_7cafcc629d"></a>

After creating a user, you'll see a few code examples to test your Web Scraper API. Copy-paste the code into your terminal or preferred tool. For manual testing, we recommend using Postman. You can start scraping Amazon, Google, or any other target right away. Here are the cURL examples for your first request:

Amazon:

```
curl ''https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries'' --user 'USERNAME:PASSWORD' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"source": "amazon_product", "query": "B07FZ8S74R", "geo_location": "90210", "parse": true}'
```

Google:

```
curl ''https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries'' --user 'USERNAME:PASSWORD' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"source": "google_search", "query": "adidas", "geo_location": "California,United States", "parse": true}'
```

Other:

```
curl ''https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries'' --user 'USERNAME:PASSWORD' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"source": "universal", "url": "https://sandbox.oxylabs.io/"}'
```

Replace the `USERNAME` and `PASSWORD` with the API credentials you’ve just created, and then [run the request via terminal](https://oxylabs.io/resources/integrations/terminal), Postman, or any other setup.

See this short video tutorial demonstrating how to use Web Scraper API:

{% embed url="<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOD0mZnu-j0>" %}

{% hint style="success" %}
Test our Web Scraper API in the Playground, which is accessible via the [dashboard](https://dashboard.oxylabs.io/en/).
{% endhint %}

### Integration methods <a href="#h_6b3693e1a2" id="h_6b3693e1a2"></a>

There are three different methods you can use to integrate Web Scraper API:

* [Realtime](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/integration-methods/realtime) – provides a synchronous method where you have to keep the connection open until the job is finished.
* [Push-Pull](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/integration-methods/push-pull) – enables an asynchronous method where you’ll have to make another request to the API to retrieve results once the job is finished.
* [Proxy Endpoint](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/integration-methods/proxy-endpoint) – offers a synchronous method where you can use our endpoint as a proxy.

{% hint style="info" %}
For more information, please refer to the respective integration pages on our [documentation](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/integration-methods) or this comprehensive [blog post](https://oxylabs.io/blog/best-integration-methods).
{% endhint %}

### Targets and parameters <a href="#h_709c50233e" id="h_709c50233e"></a>

Web Scraper API can effectively gather fresh data from any public website, including e-commerce, search engines, online travel agencies, real estate platforms, and others. Visit [documentation](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api) to learn more about the parameters you can use and see code examples.

{% hint style="info" %}
&#x20;For using features such as JavaScript rendering and user agents, explore the [Features](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/features) pages in our documentation.
{% endhint %}

### Additional free features <a href="#h_3b0fd5223e" id="h_3b0fd5223e"></a>

If you want to extend the API functionality in your projects and start gathering real-time data at scale, you can use the following features integrated into Web Scraper API:

* [OxyCopilot](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/oxycopilot-beta) – generates ready-to-use code for web scraping in seconds. This feature can be accessed via API Playground on our dashboard. We also have a collection of pre-made prompts and code samples to help you get public data from different targets even faster. It’s always available for you in the [OxyCopilot prompts and code samples library](https://oxylabs.io/resources/prompts-code-samples).
* [Custom parser](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/features/result-processing-and-storage/custom-parser) – enables you to create your own parsing and data processing logic that’s executed on a raw scraping result.
* [Scheduler](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/features/scheduler) – provides a way for you to automate recurring scraping and parsing tasks by creating schedules.
* [Custom browser instructions](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraper-apis/web-scraper-api/features/js-rendering-and-browser-control/browser-instructions) – allows you to automate browser actions before extracting data from a webpage, including clicking, scrolling, filling out forms, and waiting for elements.
* [XHR request capturing](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraping-solutions/web-scraper-api/features/result-processing-and-storage/output-types/capturing-network-requests-fetch-xhr) –  extract the required data from Fetch/XHR requests as structured JSON data while loading the web page, rather than parsing the HTML.
* [Markdown output](https://developers.oxylabs.io/scraping-solutions/web-scraper-api/features/result-processing-and-storage/output-types/markdown-output) – request markdown output as an alternative, easy-to-read option to HTML or parsed JSON results, best for AI workflows.

***

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