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Setting Lighthouse Tasks


‌The OnPage Lighthouse API is based on Google’s open-source Lighthouse project for measuring the quality of web pages and web apps.

Lighthouse measures the quality of web pages by running a series of individual tests for each specific feature or metric to produce a numeric score and generate a report. It can run audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, SEO, and conformity with best practices. You can find the full list of OnPage Lighthouse API audits in the Lighthouse Audits section. The results of the Lighthouse run will help you to easily strengthen the audited page or web app.

OnPage Lighthouse API is based on an open-source Lighthouse project. You can find the official documentation here.

Instead of ‘login’ and ‘password’ use your credentials from https://app.dataforseo.com/api-dashboard

<?php
// You can download this file from here https://cdn.dataforseo.com/v3/examples/php/php_RestClient.zip
require('RestClient.php');
$api_url = 'https://api.dataforseo.com/';
// Instead of 'login' and 'password' use your credentials from https://app.dataforseo.com/api-dashboard
$client = new RestClient($api_url, null, 'login', 'password');

$post_array = array();
// example #1 - a simple way to set a task
$post_array[] = array(
   "url" => "https://dataforseo.com",
   "for_mobile" => true
);
// example #2 - a way to set a task with additional parameters
$post_array[] = array(
   "url" => "https://dataforseo.com",
   "for_mobile" => true,
   "tag" => "some_string_123",
   "pingback_url" => 'https://your-server.com/pingscript?id=$id&tag=$tag'
);

// this example has a 2 elements, but in the case of large number of tasks - send up to 100 elements per POST request
if (count($post_array) > 0) {
   try {
      // POST /v3/on_page/task_post
      // the full list of possible parameters is available in documentation
      $result = $client->post('/v3/on_page/lighthouse/task_post', $post_array);
      print_r($result);
      // do something with post result
   } catch (RestClientException $e) {
      echo "n";
      print "HTTP code: {$e->getHttpCode()}n";
      print "Error code: {$e->getCode()}n";
      print "Message: {$e->getMessage()}n";
      print  $e->getTraceAsString();
      echo "n";
   }
}
$client = null;
?>

The above command returns JSON structured like this:

{
  "version": "0.1.20200805",
  "status_code": 20000,
  "status_message": "Ok.",
  "time": "0.0815 sec.",
  "cost": 0.00425,
  "tasks_count": 1,
  "tasks_error": 0,
  "tasks": [
    {
      "id": "08071719-1535-0216-0000-3aabdf68a6ef",
      "status_code": 20100,
      "status_message": "Task Created.",
      "time": "0.0044 sec.",
      "cost": 0.00425,
      "result_count": 0,
      "path": [
        "v3",
        "on_page",
        "lighthouse",
        "task_post"
      ],
      "data": {
        "api": "on_page",
        "function": "lighthouse",
        "url": "https://dataforseo.com",
        "for_mobile": true,
        "tag": "some_string_123",
        "pingback_url": "https://your-server.com/pingscript?id=$id&tag=$tag"
      },
      "result": null
    }
  ]
}

All POST data should be sent in the JSON format (UTF-8 encoding). Task setting is done using the POST method. When setting a task, you should send all task parameters in the task array of the generic POST array. You can send up to 2000 API calls per minute, with each POST call containing no more than 100 tasks. If your POST call contains over 100 tasks, the tasks over this limit will return the 40006 error.

You can retrieve the results of completed tasks using the unique task identifier id. Alternatively, we can send them to you as soon as they are ready if you specify the postback_url or pingback_url when setting a task. Note that if your server doesn’t respond within 10 seconds, the connection will be aborted by timeout, and the task will be transferred to the ‘Tasks Ready’ list. The error code and message depend on your server’s configuration. See Help Center to learn more about using pingbacks and postbacks with DataForSEO APIs.

To get more information about the OnPage Lighthouse API configuration parameters, please refer to the official documentation of the Lighthouse project.

Description of the fields for setting a task:

Field name Type Description
url string target URL
required field
target page should be specified with its absolute URL (including http:// or https://)
example:
https://dataforseo.com/
for_mobile boolean applies mobile emulation
optional field
if set to true, Lighthouse will use mobile device and screen emulation to test the page against mobile environment
if set to false, the results will be provided for desktop
default value: false
categories array categories of Lighthouse audits
optional field
each category is a collection of audits and audit groups that applies weighting and scoring to the section (see official definition)

if you ignore this field, we will return data for all categories unless you specify audits
use this field to get data for specific categories you indicate here

possible values:
seo, pwa, performance, best_practices, accessibility

audits array Lighthouse audits
optional field
audits are individual tests Lighthouse runs for each specific feature/optimization/metric to produce a numeric score (see official definition)

if you ignore this field, we will return data for all audits
use this field to get data for specific audits you indicate here

note that some audits do not belong to a specific category and are stand-alone page quality measurements

in general, there can be several use cases:

1. if you ignore categories, you can use this field to get data for the specified audits only
for example, if you ignore "categories" and specify "audits": ["metrics/cumulative-layout-shift","metrics/largest-contentful-paint","metrics/total-blocking-time"], you will get data only for these audits

2. if you specify a category, you can use this field to additionally receive audits that do not belong to the category(-ies) you specified
for example, if you specify "categories": ["seo"] and "audits": ["metrics/cumulative-layout-shift","metrics/largest-contentful-paint","metrics/total-blocking-time"], you will get only these audits under “performance” and all audits under “seo”

you can get the full list of possible audits here

version string lighthouse version
optional field
you can obtain the results specific to a certain Lighthouse version by specifying its number
the list of available versions is available through the Lighthouse Versions endpoint
language_name string lighthouse language name
optional field
you can receive the list of available languages of the search engine with their language_name by making a separate request to https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/on_page/lighthouse/languages
default value:
English
language_code string lighthouse language code
optional field
you can receive the list of available languages of the search engine with their language_code by making a separate request to https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/on_page/lighthouse/languages
default value:
en
tag string user-defined task identifier
optional field
the character limit is 255
you can use this parameter to identify the task and match it with the result
you will find the specified tag value in the data object of the response
pingback_url string notification URL of a completed task
optional field
when a task is completed we will notify you by GET request sent to the URL you have specified
you can use the ‘$id’ string as a $id variable and ‘$tag’ as urlencoded $tag variable. We will set the necessary values before sending the request.
example:
http://your-server.com/pingscript?id=$id
http://your-server.com/pingscript?id=$id&tag=$tag
Note: special symbols in pingback_url will be urlencoded;
i.a., the # symbol will be encoded into %23
postback_url string return URL for sending task results
optional field
once the task is completed, we will send a POST request with its results compressed in the gzip format to the postback_url you specified
you can use the ‘$id’ string as a $id variable and ‘$tag’ as urlencoded $tag variable. We will set the necessary values before sending the request
example:
http://your-server.com/postbackscript?id=$id
http://your-server.com/postbackscript?id=$id&tag=$tag
Note: special symbols in postback_url will be urlencoded;
i.a., the # symbol will be encoded into %23


As a response of the API server, you will receive JSON-encoded data containing a tasks array with the information specific to the set tasks.

Description of the fields in the results array:

Field name Type Description
version string the current version of the API
status_code integer general status code
you can find the full list of the response codes here
Note: we strongly recommend designing a necessary system for handling related exceptional or error conditions
status_message string general informational message
you can find the full list of general informational messages here
time string execution time, seconds
cost float total tasks cost, USD
tasks_count integer the number of tasks in the tasks array
tasks_error integer the number of tasks in the tasks array returned with an error
tasks array array of tasks
        id string task identifier
unique task identifier in our system in the UUID format
        status_code integer status code of the task
generated by DataForSEO; can be within the following range: 10000-60000
you can find the full list of the response codes here
        status_message string informational message of the task
you can find the full list of general informational messages here
        time string execution time, seconds
        cost float cost of the task, USD
        result_count integer number of elements in the result array
        path array URL path
        data object contains the same parameters that you specified in the POST request
        result array array of results
in this case, the value will be null

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