I found this code online, however it does not work when I "copy and paste" it into Google Apps Script:

https://webscraping.pro/scrape-google-app-script/

What changes must I make for it to work, or alternatively is there a straight-forward way to search for specific key words on a website and return the results in Google Sheets?

CodePudding user response：

Try this code in a worksheet, then filter some unusable rows

function textOnly() {
  var url='https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69148306/how-do-i-use-google-apps-script-to-scrape-a-website-for-specific-key-words?noredirect=1#comment122219344_69148306'
  var sh=SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet()
  sh.clear()
  var data=UrlFetchApp.fetch(url).getContentText().replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r|\t)/gm," ").split('>')
  data.forEach(function (part){
    var text = part.split('<')[0]
    if (text.replace(/([ ] )/gm,"")!='') {
      sh.appendRow([part.split('<')[0].replace(/([ ]{2,})/gm," ").replace(/(^ )/gm,"")])
    }
  })
}

You will then able to filter with your specific key words. To include these key words inside the script, assuming they are located in keywords range :

function textOnly() {
  var url='https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69148306/how-do-i-use-google-apps-script-to-scrape-a-website-for-specific-key-words?noredirect=1#comment122219344_69148306'
  var sh=SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet()
  sh.clear()
  var data=UrlFetchApp.fetch(url).getContentText().replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r|\t)/gm," ").split('>')
  var list = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getRangeByName('keywords').getValues().join('|').toLowerCase().split('|')
  var n=0
  data.forEach(function (part){
    var text = part.split('<')[0]
    var myText = part.split('<')[0].replace(/([ ]{2,})/gm," ").replace(/(^ )/gm,"")
    if (text.replace(/([ ] )/gm,"")!='') {
      list.forEach(function (term){
        if (myText.toLowerCase().includes(term)){
          sh.appendRow([myText])
          n  
        }
      })
    }
  })
  SpreadsheetApp.getActive().toast(n " item(s) found", "End of script !", 5);
}