Scrape Google Sheets: Fix #N/A with Apps Script

Google Sheets is more than just a spreadsheet; it is a cloud-based development platform. For growth hackers and data analysts, the ability to pull live data from the web directly into a cell is a superpower.

Most tutorials stop at =IMPORTXML. But if you have tried using it on Amazon, LinkedIn, or any modern website in 2026, you have likely stared at the dreaded #N/A error. This happens because target websites detect the request coming from Google’s data centers and block it instantly.

In this guide, I will start with the basics, but quickly move to the professional solution: writing custom Apps Script functions that utilize proxies and handle JSON data.

1. The “Naive” Method: IMPORTXML

For simple, static blogs or Wikipedia pages, the built-in function works fine. It uses XPath to select elements.

=IMPORTXML("https://example.com", "//h1")

Why it Fails on Real Sites

• No User-Agent Control: The request identifies itself as “Googlebot,” which many sites block to save bandwidth.
• Caching Hell: Google caches the results aggressively. If the price changes on the website, your sheet might not update for hours.
• JavaScript Blindness: It fetches raw HTML. If the site uses React/Vue to load data (client-side rendering), IMPORTXML sees an empty container.

2. The Fix: Custom Functions in Apps Script

To bypass these limits, we need to write a small script. Go to Extensions > Apps Script in your Google Sheet.

Setting Custom Headers

We will create a custom function =EXTRACT_HTML() that mimics a real Chrome browser using UrlFetchApp.

/**
 * Fetches HTML content using a custom User-Agent.
 * @param {string} url The URL to scrape.
 * @return The HTML content.
 * @customfunction
 */
function EXTRACT_HTML(url) {
  var options = {
    'method': 'get',
    'headers': {
      'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'
    },
    'muteHttpExceptions': true
  };
  
  try {
    var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, options);
    return response.getContentText();
  } catch (e) {
    return "Error: " + e.toString();
  }
}

Save this script, then type =EXTRACT_HTML("https://httpbin.org/headers") in a cell. You will see your custom User-Agent reflected back.

3. The “API” Method: Parsing JSON

Modern web scraping often involves internal APIs, not HTML. If you can find the JSON endpoint a website uses (via Chrome DevTools > Network Tab), you can pull structured data directly.

function GET_CRYPTO_PRICE(coin) {
  var url = "https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/simple/price?ids=" + coin + "&vs_currencies=usd";
  var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);
  var json = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());
  
  // Access nested data: json['bitcoin']['usd']
  if (json[coin] && json[coin]['usd']) {
    return json[coin]['usd'];
  } else {
    return "N/A";
  }
}

4. The Enterprise Solution: Thordata Integration

Even with custom headers, requests from Google’s servers share a limited range of IP addresses (AS15169). Target websites know this and block high-volume traffic from Google Cloud.

To scrape at scale (e.g., tracking 1,000 product prices daily), you must route traffic through residential proxies. Since you cannot configure proxy settings directly in UrlFetchApp, you use the Thordata Web Unlocker API as a gateway.

function FETCH_VIA_THORDATA(targetUrl) {
  var apiToken = "YOUR_THORDATA_SCRAPER_TOKEN";
  
  // Thordata Universal Endpoint
  var endpoint = "https://universalapi.thordata.com/request";
  
  var payload = {
    "url": targetUrl,
    "js_render": "True",  // Handles dynamic sites
    "country": "us"       // Geo-target the request
  };

  var options = {
    'method': 'post',
    'headers': { 'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + apiToken },
    'payload': payload
  };
  
  var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(endpoint, options);
  var json = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());
  
  // Return the rendered HTML content
  return json.html;
}

Conclusion

Google Sheets is an incredibly powerful prototyping tool. While IMPORTXML is fine for hobbyists, serious data acquisition requires Apps Script. By adding custom headers and integrating high-quality residential proxies via Thordata, you can turn a simple spreadsheet into a live data dashboard monitoring prices, SEO rankings, and financial metrics.