Need to automatically summarize multiple webpages? This tutorial shows how to build a webpage scraping and summarization workflow in Needle that processes URLs and creates structured summaries.

Overview

The workflow reads URLs from Google Sheets, scrapes each webpage, generates AI summaries, and outputs to Google Docs—turning hours of manual reading into automated content digests.

Key Actions

1. Scheduled Trigger – Runs hourly/daily to process new URLs
2. Google Sheets Input – Reads URLs from your spreadsheet
3. Web Scraping – Fetches and extracts content from each page
4. AI Summarization – Creates structured summaries with key points
5. Google Docs Output – Appends formatted summaries to a document

What You'll Need

• Google Sheet – With column for URLs to process Tip: Add columns for category, priority, or tags for better organization
• Google Doc – Output document for compiled summaries
• URL Sources – Research articles, competitor blogs, news sites

How It Works

Every hour (or on your schedule):

1. The workflow reads your Google Sheet looking for new URLs

2. For each URL:

   • Browses the webpage and extracts:
     • Page title
     • Main content (article body)
     • Author and publish date
     • Key images and links

3. AI analyzes the content to create:

   • URL: Original link
   • Title: Page title
   • Key Points: 3-5 main takeaways (bullet points)
   • Notable Quotes: Important statements or data
   • Related Links: Internal/external links mentioned
   • Summary: 2-3 paragraph overview

4. The structured summary is formatted in markdown

5. Summary is appended to your Google Doc:

   ## Article Title
   **Source**: [URL]
   **Date**: October 1, 2025
   
   ### Key Points
   - Point 1
   - Point 2
   - Point 3
   
   ### Summary
   Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
   
   ---
   

6. Google Sheet is updated with "Processed" status

Use Cases:

• Research compilation
• Competitor content monitoring
• News digests
• Content curation
• Market intelligence gathering

Wrap-up

With this Needle workflow, you can process dozens of webpages daily into organized, readable summaries—perfect for researchers, content strategists, analysts, and anyone who needs to digest large amounts of web content efficiently.