# Author Finder Actor

[![Author Finder Actor](https://apify.com/actor-badge?actor=tomba-io/author-finder)](https://apify.com/tomba-io/author-finder)

A powerful Apify Actor that discovers and extracts author information from web pages using the Tomba Author Finder API. Perfect for content creators, researchers, and marketers who need to identify and verify author details from articles, blog posts, and web content.

## Key Features

- **Author Discovery**: Extract author information directly from web page URLs
- **Email Verification**: Get verified email addresses with confidence scores
- **Professional Details**: Company, position, and contact information
- **Social Profiles**: Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media links
- **Bulk Processing**: Process multiple URLs efficiently with rate limiting
- **Rate Limited**: Respects Tomba's 150 requests per minute limit
- **Rich Data Output**: Comprehensive author profiles with metadata
- **Built-in Verification**: Email validation and confidence scoring

## How it works

The Actor leverages Tomba's powerful Author Finder API to extract comprehensive author information:

### Process Flow

1. **Authentication**: Connects to Tomba API using your credentials
2. **Input Processing**: Accepts array of URLs to analyze
3. **Author Discovery**: Uses Tomba's authorFinder method for each URL
4. **Data Validation**: Processes and validates author information
5. **Rate Limiting**: Automatically handles 150 requests/minute limit
6. **Data Storage**: Saves results to Apify dataset

### What You Get

For each discovered author, you'll receive:

- **Personal Info**: First name, last name, full name
- **Email Details**: Verified email address with confidence score
- **Professional**: Company, position, website URL
- **Location**: Country information (when available)
- **Social Media**: Twitter, LinkedIn profiles
- **Source Tracking**: Multiple sources where author was found
- **Verification**: Email validation status and metadata

## Quick Start

### Prerequisites

1. **Tomba Account**: Sign up at [Tomba.io](https://app.tomba.io/api) to get your API credentials

### Getting Your API Keys

1. Visit [Tomba API Dashboard](https://app.tomba.io/api)
2. Copy your **API Key** (starts with `ta_`)
3. Copy your **Secret Key** (starts with `ts_`)

## Input Configuration

### Required Parameters

| Parameter        | Type     | Description                          |
| ---------------- | -------- | ------------------------------------ |
| `tombaApiKey`    | `string` | Your Tomba API key (ta_xxxx)         |
| `tombaApiSecret` | `string` | Your Tomba secret key (ts_xxxx)      |
| `urls`           | `array`  | Array of URLs to analyze for authors |

### Optional Parameters

| Parameter    | Type     | Default | Description                         |
| ------------ | -------- | ------- | ----------------------------------- |
| `maxResults` | `number` | `50`    | Maximum number of results to return |

### Example Input

```json
{
    "tombaApiKey": "ta_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "tombaApiSecret": "ts_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "urls": [
        "https://www.shopify.com/blog/self-publish-a-book",
        "https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing",
        "https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/15/startup-funding/"
    ],
    "maxResults": 100
}
```

### Best Practices

- **URL Selection**: Choose pages that likely contain author information (blog posts, articles, about pages)
- **Rate Limits**: The Actor automatically handles Tomba's 150 requests/minute limit
- **Batch Size**: Process 10-50 URLs at a time for optimal performance

## Output Data Structure

The Actor returns detailed author information for each discovered author:

```json
{
    "email": "author@example.com",
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "full_name": "John Doe",
    "website_url": "example.com",
    "company": "Example Corp",
    "position": "Content Writer",
    "country": "US",
    "twitter": "https://twitter.com/johndoe",
    "linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/in/johndoe",
    "score": 95,
    "verification": {
        "date": "2025-10-17T00:00:00+02:00",
        "status": "valid"
    },
    "sources": [
        {
            "uri": "https://example.com/blog/article",
            "website_url": "example.com",
            "extracted_on": "2024-09-17T11:26:56+02:00",
            "last_seen_on": "2025-09-06T04:51:06+02:00",
            "still_on_page": true
        }
    ]
}
```

### Data Fields Explained

- **Email Verification**: verification.status shows email validity
- **Confidence Score**: score (0-100) indicates data reliability
- **Source Tracking**: sources array shows where author was found
- **Time Stamps**: Track when data was extracted and last verified
- **Multi-Source**: Authors may be found across multiple pages

## Use Cases

- **Content Attribution**: Identify authors of articles and blog posts
- **Email Outreach**: Find verified contact information for content creators
- **Research**: Academic and journalistic research on authorship
- **Marketing**: Build contact lists for influencer outreach
- **Verification**: Validate author information across sources

## Resources & Documentation

### API Documentation

- [Tomba API Docs](https://tomba.io/api) - Complete API reference
- [Authentication Guide](https://app.tomba.io/api) - Get your API keys
- [Pricing & Limits](https://tomba.io/pricing) - Understand rate limits and costs

### Rate Limiting

- Tomba limits to **150 requests per minute**
- Actor automatically handles rate limiting with delays
- Large batches may take time to complete

### Cost Considerations

- Each URL processed = 1 Tomba API request
- Monitor your Tomba usage dashboard
- Consider Tomba's pricing tiers for volume usage

## Support

If you need any help, have questions, or encounter any issues while using Tomba.io, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team:

- **Email**: support@tomba.io
- **Live chat**: Available on the Tomba.io website during business hours

## About Tomba

Founded in 2020, Tomba prides itself on being the most reliable, accurate, and in-depth source of email address data available anywhere. We process terabytes of data to produce our Email finder API.